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Camel Cloning: Inside Dubai’s ‘Frozen Zoo’

DUBAI — Inside a cryogenic storage tank in a laboratory on the outskirts of Dubai, thousands of animals are waiting to be born. A vast library of cells, collected by the country’s experts on cloning, is stored at temperatures as low as (–196) degrees C.

“This is a frozen zoo,” said Dr Nisar Wani, head of the Camel Reproduction Centre in Dubai, gesturing to the cryogenic tank. “Inside these boxes are thousands upon thousands of cells, which translates as millions upon millions of animals.”

Two years ago, a single cell was taken from this storage tank and was implanted into the uterus of a female camel. A little over a year later, the world’s first cloned camel was born.

Although his team have since cloned a second camel, and around a dozen more are due to be born early next year, Dr Wani retains a special affection for his first creation. The female camel, named Injaz – which means ‘achievement’ in Arabic – is now around 14 months old and appears healthy. “She’s lovely isn’t she?” said Dr Wani, after receiving a slobbery kiss from the doe-eyed animal. “I feel like I am almost her father.”

Indeed, the veterinarian embryologist has every reason to feel a special bond with the animal, having nursed her growth from the time she was but a single cell.

While Injaz was cloned from the cells of an animal that was destined for the slaughterhouse, the second camel to be born in February this year is the exact genetic replica of a racing camel worth several million dirhams.

“He is a male camel, so he’s a bit mean tempered,” said Dr Wani. “Other than that, he’s also in perfect health.”

Dr Wani’s centre receives funding from the office of His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

As such, elite camels owned by the royal family are frequently brought in for their DNA to be sampled.

“We have to take only a small skin sample from the animal’s ears. We cannot take too much and we have to make sure there is no bleeding,” he said. Back in the lab, the cells are cultured, and implanted into a donor egg cell whose nucleas has been removed. It is fused with an electric current and chemically stimulated to ensure growth. After seven days, it is implanted back into the uterus of the surrogate mother.

As simple as the process may seem, back when Dr Wani was first recruited onto the project in 2003 he had few clues about where to start. “Something like this had never been done before,” he said. “I was basically starting from a scratch.” There are currently over 10 new pregnancies at the centre, which will be expected around the beginning of the next year. “All of those will have elite genes,” said Dr Wani.

In the future, as the first animals to be cloned grow older in good health, Dr Wani believes that there will be a demand from private camel breeders to have their animals cloned.

“Some of the most valued animals are worth up to Dh20 million,” Dr Wani said. “Through cloning we are able to produce an exact genetic replica of that animal. “If we charge half a million dirhams for that, it’s only a fraction of the original cost.”

With breeding season to start again at the end of September, Dr Wani and his team are likely to be increasingly busy. Through commercial funding, Dr Wani hopes to be able to build on some of the potential applications of cloning.

In particular, he hopes that the expertise that has been developed at the centre will be used to ensure the survival of the UAE’s endangered species. One day, he said, the dwindling population of species such as Arabian Oryx and Arabian Leopard could be bolstered with cloned animals. “We have many endangered animals in the UAE,” he said. “We can use the cells of these animals and use another species, from the same family, as a surrogate mother.

Last week, a team in Saudi Arabia announced that it had mapped the genome of a camel. The potential applications of that for research at the centre were huge, Dr Wani said. “If we know which genes control the animal’s resistance to disease, we could produce a genetically modified camel,” he said.

It is also possibile that specific genes could be injected into the embryo, so that when fully developed, the animal could produce pharmaceutical drugs in its milk. “You would see how much you would be able to reduce the cost of drugs through this,” Dr Wani said.

Although Dr Wani’s work involves a large amount of tinkering with nature, he sees little contradiction with his own religious belief. “It isn’t me who is creating the cells, or the animals,” he said. “We are just trying to simulate what God is doing.”

martin@khaleejtimes.com