Prof. Sir Ian Wilmut OBE (born July 7 1944) is an Scottish embryologist and is currently one of the leaders of the Queen's Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known as the man who played a supervisory, but not a scientific, role in the team that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a Finn Dorset lamb named Dolly. He was granted an OBE in 1999 for services to embryo development. In December 2007 it was announced that he would be knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours.

Biography

Wilmut was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire), England, and became interested in biology while working as a farmhand.^[1][2]

His father, Leonard Wilmut, was a maths teacher who had a severe case of diabetes that caused blindness.

Wilmut met Christopher Polge, who had discovered cryopreservation in 1949, and became fascinated with the research. He earlier desired to embark on a naval career, but was unable to do so because of his colour blindness.^[2]

He was a student of the former Boy's High School, in Scarborough, where his father taught.

After attending the University of Nottingham for his undergraduate degree, Wilmut was awarded a Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1971; his subsequent research led to the birth of the first calf from a frozen embryo ? "Frosty" ? in 1973.

Steen Willadsen, at Cambridge, England, was the first to clone a mammal from differentiated cells, from sheep embryos, in 1984.^{[3] [4]}

In 1995, Keith Campbell and Bill Ritchie succeeded in producing a pair of lambs, Megan and Morag from embryonic cells. Dolly the sheep, a Finn Dorset sheep, named after the singer, Dolly Parton, was born in 1996. Dolly was the first clone derived from adult cells. She died early, in 2003, at 6 years old. In 1998 another sheep Polly was created. She was made from genetically altered skin cells to contain a human gene.

He was knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours for "services to science".^[2]

It has been reported that Wilmut is abandoning cloning in light of Shinya Yamanaka's work on induced pluripotent stem cells.^{[5] [6]}

It has been reported that the Queen has been petitioned to deny Wilmut's honour. ^{[7] [8] [9] [10] [11]}

References

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1512377/I-didn%27t-clone-Dolly-the-sheep%2C-says-prof.html

1. ↑ Academy of Achievement ''Ian Wilmut Interview'' Academy of Achievement
2. ↑ ^{a b c}
3. ↑ Thinkquest website
4. ↑ Australian CSIRO report
5. ↑
6. ↑ See also http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/16/scidolly116.xml
7. ↑ A petition to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
8. ↑ Honour for creator of Dolly the sheep ?is insult to science?
9. ↑ Dolly scientist should be stripped of his knighthood, colleagues tell queen
10. ↑ TES report
11. ↑ The Independent's view

External links

• Newsletter, Center for Genetics and Society
• Dolly Scientist Joins The University of Edinburgh
• Daily Telegraph item
• The Guardian item
• The People's Daily item

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