News Release

BGI collaborates with Lal Teer Livestock Limited targeting water buffalo genome project

Business Announcement

BGI Shenzhen

March 3rd, 2012, Shenzhen, China – Lal Teer Livestock Limited, an associate of Lal Teer Seed Ltd., the largest seed company in Bangladesh with strong hybrid research program, and BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, jointly announced today that they came to a mutual agreement to conduct collaborative water buffalo genome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. This project will lay an important foundation for the breeding of water buffalo, and the understanding of its origin and domestication process.

Water Buffalo is a large bovine animal and common livestock in many countries. Since it was domesticated in Asia countries about 3000 to 6000 years ago, its current population has grown up to about 168 million in the world and with roughly 97% of them in Asia. Water Buffalo also becomes economically important draught animal in many countries, and serves as an importance source for the production of meat, horn, skin and dairy. In particular, it provides more than 5% of the world's milk supply and 20% to 30% of the farm power in Southeast Asia. With the long established history of economic reliance on water buffalo, biological researches have become increasingly important for enhancing its economic value in the future.

Under the collaboration agreement, Lal Teer Livestock Limited will provide BGI with the DNA samples from water buffalo for analysis by next-generation sequencing technologies. The sequencing work will include sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, including genome assembly, annotation and evolutionary analysis. Besides, both parties agree to collaborate in plant genomics research and other genetics programs in future. BGI will also provide necessary technical support to Lal Teer.

"We are excited to have joined forces with BGI to initiate the water buffalo genome project," stated Mr. Tafsir Mohammed Awal, Director of Lal Teer, "Given BGI's expertise in genomic sequencing and bioinformatics as well as its extensive experience researching numerous key animal genomes, such as panda genome, chicken genome, among others, we expect our collaboration to lead to significant 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. This will dramatically enhance the intake of milk and meat of the children to supplement their nutrition and food for all ages in Bangladesh"

"We are pleasured to form this partnership with Lal Teer Seed and Lal Teer Livestock to undertake this important project," said Jian Wang, President of BGI, "We believe this project will have significant contribution to the breeding and the understanding of water buffalo evolution."

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About Lal Teer

Lal Teer Seed Ltd was founded in Bangladesh in 1995 with mission to develop, produce and supply of quality seed, specially the hybrid vegetable seed to the farmers. In 15 years time Lal Teer released 54 hybrid varieties and 60 high yielding varieties. Now Lal Teer exports seeds to many countries of the world. Lal Teer seed also deals various field crops including rice, maize, wheat, oil & pulses and cotton seed. After a success in seeds, Lal Teer founded its animal breeding venture named Lal Teer Livestock Ltd. in 2010 - with a vision to become the pioneer in the livestock industry by promoting sustainable means of livestock production for the maximum productivity. With a skilled management team with over thirty years of experience, the company will focus on sustainability as improved productivity through a dedicated research facility.

About BGI

BGI was founded in Beijing, China, in 1999 with the mission to become a premier scientific partner for the global research community. The goal of BGI is to make leading-edge genomic science highly accessible, which it achieves through its investment in infrastructure, leveraging the best available technology, economies of scale, and expert bioinformatics resources. BGI, and its affiliates, BGI Americas, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, and BGI Europe, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, have established partnerships and collaborations with leading academic and government research institutions as well as global biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, supporting a variety of disease, agricultural, environmental, and related applications.

BGI has a proven track record of excellence, delivering results with high efficiency and accuracy for innovative, high-profile research: research that has generated over 170 publications in top-tier journals such as Nature and Science. BGI's many accomplishments include: sequencing one percent of the human genome for the International Human Genome Project, contributing 10 percent to the International Human HapMap Project, carrying out research to combat SARS and German deadly E. coli, playing a key role in the Sino-British Chicken Genome Project, and completing the sequence of the rice genome, the silkworm genome, the first Asian diploid genome, the potato genome, and, more recently, have sequenced the human Gut Metagenome, and a significant proportion of the genomes for the 1000 Genomes Project.

For more information about BGI, please visit www.genomics.cn

Contact Information:

Fakhrul Islam,
Deputy General Manager, International Business
Lal Teer
+88 -02-8619523
Fakhrul.islam@multimodebd.com

Bicheng Yang,
Public Communication Officer
BGI
+86-755-82639701
yangbicheng@genomics.cn
www.genomics.cn


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