Indian scientists hope Iran will help in cloning cheetah
Posted August 26th, 2007 by Indian-MuslimIndia News New Delhi, Aug
25, IRNA , Scientists at a Laboratory for the Conservation of
Endangered Species (LaCONE), Hyderabad, capital city of Andhra
Pradesh are continuing their efforts to clone a rabbit and ope to get
assistance from Iran to fulfill their ambitious goal - to clone a
cheetah.
This is the country's first animal cloning bid, and the LaCONE
scientists, of the prestigious Center for Cellular and Molecular
Biology (CCMB), want to clone a laboratory animal before working on
their dream project, IANS reported here Saturday.
It has been over a decade that the scientists at CCMB are talking of
cloning a cheetah to revive a species that became extinct in India
more than four decades ago.
The efforts by Indian authorities to persuade Iran to donate a pair
of live cheetahs or at least its sperm and tissue samples have not
yielded the desired results.
CCMB director Lalji Singh, however, has not lost hope.
"We hope that we will still be able to convince Iran to help in the
project," Singh told newspersons in Hyderabad.
Singh had made a request to then Iranian president Mohammad Khatami
when he visited CCMB in January 2003.
Cheetahs are the fastest animals on earth capable of running up to 95
km an hour. They were once found in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The cheetah became extinct in India in 1962 because of large-scale
hunting.
Iran is the only country where a close relative of the extinct Indian
cheetah is found.
Singh, the first scientist in India to use DNA fingerprinting to
solve criminal cases, will be talking to a group of Iranian
scientists scheduled to visit Hyderabad for a joint meeting with
their Indian counterparts on stem cell research in November.
He hopes that the discussions between the scientists would prove
fruitful.
Singh, however, said the institute was not pursuing seriously the
idea to obtain a live animal from Iran. International organizations
have told CCMB that a cheetah could not be shifted from Iran because
India has no natural habitat where the animal can be released.
"We will try to get stem cells from Iran. We want to have a tissue
bank where frozen tissues can be stored. This facility is still under
construction,
The scientists plan to take the genes from live cheetah cells and
fuse it with empty leopard eggs. Any resulting embryos would then be
carried in leopard surrogates.
Singh said there was also an offer of collaboration with South Africa
on cheetah cloning.
"One day it (cloning) will be done. I don't know whether we will be
able to fulfill this in my lifetime," said Singh.
http://www.indianmu
iran_will_help_
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
____________________________________________
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
