NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – BGI and Lal Teer Livestock today announced a collaboration to gain a better understanding of the water buffalo.
Lal Teer Livestock, an associate of Lal Teer Seed, a Bangladesh-based seed company, will provide BGI with DNA samples of the animal for next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, including genome assembly, annotation, and evolutionary analysis.
The project is expected to provide a foundation for water buffalo breeding, as well as a greater understanding of its origin and domestication process. Water buffalo is an important animal for the economy in parts of Asia. In Southeast Asia, it provides more than 5 percent of the region's milk supply and 20 percent to 30 percent of the farm power.
In a statement, Tafsir Mohammed Awal, director of Lal Teer, said that he expects the collaboration to result in important research findings in meat quality, milk nutrition, disease resistance, "and other factors that are important in the breeding of high-quality and productive water buffalo."
Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The partners also plan on collaborating on plant genomics research and other genetics-based research, they said.