Injaz

On April 14, 2009, it was announced that Dr. Nisar Ahmad Wani, a veterinarian
embryologist at the Camel Reproduction Center in Dubai, United Arab
Emirates, had successfully cloned the first camel. Her name is Injaz and she
is a dromedary camel. Injaz was born after an "uncomplicated" gestation of
378 days. The cloning project had the personal endorsement and financial
support of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister, Vice
President of the United Arab Emirates, and the emir of Dubai.

Injaz was created from ovarian cells of an adult camel killed for its meat in
2005. The cells were grown in tissue culture and then frozen in liquid
nitrogen. Afterwards, one of the cells was injected into a nucleus-removed
oocyte of the surrogate camel, which were fused with an electric current and
chemically induced to initiate cell division. The resulting embryo was cultured
for a week and implanted back into the surrogate camel's uterus. Camel
racing is a lucrative industry in the UAE and Dr. Lulu Skidmore, the Center's
scientific director, commented that the camel cloning "gives a means of
preserving the valuable genetics of our elite racing and milk-producing camels
in the future."