NDRI to explore therapeutic properties of milk

After being successful in the field of cloning and several dairy research programmes, scientists of the ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) will explore the therapeutic properties in the milk of bovine and non-bovine animals.

“We have already identified some health promoting milk bio-active peptides. Now, we are further going to validate these peptides to determine the therapeutic properties of milk,” said Dr Dheer Singh, Director, NDRI.

Dr Singh said goat milk was recommended to dengue patients and more research would be done to determine the medical properties of goat milk, which was useful to dengue patients. “We will try to determine these useful properties in goat milk,” he said.

In the coming days, the NDRI would expedite the multiplication of elite germplasm with the help of different reproductive techniques such as cloning, embryo transfer, IVF, ovum pick-up and others, he said. “We are already working on producing good germplasm. We will expedite it in the coming days also,” he said.

The Director said they would take the semen of cloned animals to the field to check the performance so that elite germplasm could be produced. Besides, they were going to set up a semen centre, for which a budget had been cleared.

Dr Singh said they were working to ensure an economical technology for sorting of semen to get only female calves. He further stated that they would link the NDRI-deemed university with 19 institutes of animal science under the national education policy. Students would get education at the NDRI and later they would be sent to other institutes to do research work.

Dr Singh said their focus would be on eradicating mastitis disease among animals so that the production could be maintained.

On being asked whether the stray cattle menace was the result of cross-breeding, the Director denied it and said that the government was working on shifting stray cattle to gaushalas. The gaushalas should be able to sustain itself. He further said the annual milk production was 210MT with a growth rate of 6.28 per cent, while the animal growth rate was 1 per cent.

The Director said they would continue to work on climate-resilient breeds and said indigenous breeds such as Tharparkar and Sahiwal were more climate resilient in comparison to other cross-breeds.