The scientists behind the world’s first cloned mammal, Dolly the Sheep, has died at the age of 79.
Professor Sir Ian Wilmut was a British embryologist and best known as the leader of the research group that cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a Finnish Dorset lamb named Dolly.
He was appointed OBE in 1999 for services to embryo development and knighted in the 2008.
Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, and her birth in 1996 was a major scientific breakthrough.
Sir Wilmut is considered a pioneer in the field of cloning and his work has had a profound impact on our understanding of genetics and biology.
He studied animal science at the University of Edinburgh and then went on to do a PhD in reproductive physiology at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.
In 1995, he led a team of scientists who successfully cloned Dolly from the cells of an adult sheep.
Dolly was born the following year and lived for six and a half years, producing six lambs of her own.
His work was controversial at the time, but it has since been hailed as a major scientific achievement.
Dolly’s cloning has paved the way for other cloning techniques, which could be used to create organs and tissues for transplantation, to preserve endangered species, and to develop new drugs and treatments.
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