NEW DELHI, August 13 : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today released the world’s largest cattle Genomic Chip “IndiGau’, developed by India.
On the eve of 75th Independence Day, the Minister also released the special issue of “Science Reporter” highlighting 75 years of India’s progress in the field of Science.
Present on the occasion were eminent scientists from different fields, led by Principal Scientific Advisor Dr Vijay Raghavan, Secretary S&T Dr Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary Biotechnology Dr Renu Swaroop and DG CSIR Dr Shekhar Mande.
This is the first Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) based chip for the conservation of pure varieties of indigenous cattle breeds like Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal, Ongole etc.
This indigenous chip was developed by the concerted efforts of scientists of National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NAIB), Hyderabad, an autonomous institution under the aegis of the Department of Biotechnology.
In his address, Dr Jitendra Singh said, this is an occasion for triple celebrations, that is, celebration of India’s Cow and Cattle, celebration of the calibre of India’s Scientists and above all, celebration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of AtmaNirbhar Bharat. He said, Prime Minister has always underlined to apply scientific knowledge and innovations for “Ease of Living” for all sections of society.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that IndiGau is purely indigenous and the largest cattle chip of the world. It has 11,496 markers (SNPs) more than that placed on 777K Illumina Chip of US & UK breeds. The Minister said, this CHIP of our own indigenous cows is a great example of self-reliant India / “ATMA NIRBHAR BHARAT”. He said, this chip will have practical utility in the Government’s schemes to achieve the goal of conservation of our own breeds with better characters and help towards doubling of farmers’ income by 2022. He took pride that even Departments like DBT and NIAB are contributing to the welfare and income augmentation of farmers.
Dr. Renu Swarup, Secretary DBT speaking on the occasion thanked the Union Minister for releasing the IndiGau chip and also congratulated NAIB for this achievement. Dr. Swarup also informed that DBT is looking forward to implement this technology in the field with the help of other agencies like NDDB, DAHDF, ICAR, etc. To further use of this chip in generating phenotypic and genotypic correlations, NIAB has entered into a collaborative agreement with National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
Since NDDB has a well organized presence in the field for collection of phenotypic record, NIAB and NDDB complement each other to undertake this research for generating information for low density SNP chip for any important trait detection, like high milk yield or heat tolerance etc. This will eventually help in elite bull selection and improvement of productivity characters of Indian cattle.
NIAB has also entered into a MoU with private industry to generate capability within India for designing and making our own SNP chips. These may be very low density SNP chips in the beginning and slowly this technology can be further strengthened for bigger chips, making India self-reliant in this field.
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