Bangladeshis decode buffalo genome

A group of Bangladeshi scientists have decoded the genome of buffalo becoming the first in the country to sequence DNA of any animal. Firoj Shah Shikder, Chief Coordinator of Lal Teer Livestock Ltd, said on Thursday researchers of the private organisation made the breakthrough. One of the researchers, Kazi Emdadul Haq, told bdnews24.com that they cracked the genome code in cooperation with a Chinese research organisation – Beijing Genome Institute. Genome is the ordering of genes in a haploid set of chromosomes of a particular organism. Department of Livestock Resources Director Ataur Rahman acknowledged the decoding of buffalo genome by Lal Teer researchers. Lal Teer Director Tabith Awal said they had collected samples of buffalo genome from Hatia island in Bhola and from Dinajpur two years back and initiated the research with the permission of Livestock Research Institute. He said this was the first buffalo genome decoding in the world and maiden animal DNA sequencing in Bangladesh. The buffalo, widely available in South Asia, is used to plough land and transport goods. Its meat and milk are also consumed. Earlier, a group of Bangladeshi scientists had sequenced genome of local Tosha variety of jute.