One of the creators of the world’s first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, has died at the age of 79.
The work of Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, laid the foundations for stem cell research. His legacy is the creation of a field known as regenerative medicine – repairing damaged tissue, and having huge potential to enable more people to live longer, healthier lives.
BBC News reports that the creation of Dolly in 1996 was arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century.
Wilmut was among the leaders of a team that used a cell from the mammary gland of a dead adult sheep to create a living animal genetically identical to the donor.
How he did it
The process involved putting DNA from the adult cell into an empty sheep’s egg. Researchers then stimulated it with electricity and added chemicals – which had the effect of rejuvenating the adult DNA into an embryo: this was then implanted into a surrogate sheep until it came to term.
Dolly’s arrival more than 25 years ago sparked euphoria and anxiety in equal measure. It was an incredible scientific achievement.
Human cloning
But the message that Dolly was created to develop new medical treatments was initially drowned out by fears that humans would be next to be cloned, leading to US president at the time, Bill Clinton, rapidly announcing a ban on human cloning experiments.
Dolly's creator, however, was no Dr Frankenstein, and said the creation of Dolly was for the betterment of humanity, rather than to replace it. His burning ambition was to find cures for debilitating illnesses.
The same technology that created Dolly could be used to grow brain and muscle tissue that could be transplanted into patients, he said.
Wilmut’s aim was to take a cell from a patient suffering from, say Parkinson’s disease, and zap it back into an embryonic state. But rather than allow it to develop into a clone of the patient, the so-called embryonic stem cell could be coaxed into becoming nerve cells to replace the damaged parts of his/her brain.
The use of human embryonic material was controversial, and so research into so-called therapeutic cloning was banned in many countries, including several states in the US.
But years Dolly’s birth, Japanese researchers built on Wilmut's work and found a way of creating cells that behaved in the same way as embryonic stem cells without using cloning, called Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (IPS).
Researchers worldwide have succeeded in growing a wide range of cells using IPS.
Careful work is under way to make sure that the cells are safe to use and will be effective before they begin clinical trials on patients.
In retrospect, Dolly's birth was not the paradigm shifting moment that many hoped and/or feared it was at the time. There have been no cloned armies of super soldiers or loved ones brought back from the dead; nor have there been dramatic miracle cures, at least not yet.
But Wilmut’s creation, Dolly the cloned sheep, remains a scientific icon, marking an outstanding scientific achievement by the researchers at Roslin.
The team sparked a revolution in medical research that will eventually keep more of us healthier for longer.
BBC News article – Dolly the sheep creator Ian Wilmut dies aged 79 (Open access)
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