2023-09-11 16:56:13
There are probably few men who would boast about being the father of a sheep – but cell biologist Sir Ian Wilmut was one of them. On July 5, 1996, a team led by the scientist succeeded in cloning a sheep: Dolly. Apparently the scientists chose the name Dolly as a homage to the singer Dolly Parton, who had not previously been informed of this dubious honor. The animal emerged from the enucleated egg cell and the cell nucleus from the udder cell of a sheep.
Dolly was the first cloned mammal in the world in which a so-called cell nuclear transfer with an adult cell nucleus had been successfully carried out.
The stuffed Dolly sheep is on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. : Image: Picture Alliance
Ian Wilmut carried out the cloning experiments at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh – and after the success catapulted Great Britain to the forefront of cloning research. An emotional discussion quickly broke out around the world about the possible consequences and ethical dangers of this development. The then US President Bill Clinton was not the only one to put the question of the bioethical standards of cloning technology on his agenda.
With the publication about “Dolly” in the specialist journal “Nature” in 1997 was published, Wilmut became world famous. He was honored as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999 and was elevated to the personal peerage as “Sir” in 2008. In the following years he received a large number of prestigious awards for his research.
But the great fame often makes us forget that Wilmut was at most Dolly’s “spiritual father”. Because embryologist Keith Campell actually accomplished the cloning feat. The microbiologist and cell biologist had previously conducted research on yeasts and clawed frogs, important model organisms in embryology. Thanks to his expertise, the crucial cell transfer from the sheep cells was successful in Wilmut’s working group.
It wasn’t easy: the nucleus from the udder cell was carefully inserted into the enucleated cell and fused with it using an electrical impulse. 430 egg cells were originally enucleated, and the new cell nucleus was introduced into 270. Only 29 of these cells developed into a blastocyte, the cluster of cells that is the precursor to an embryo. An embryo only grew from one blastocyte and was successfully carried to term by a ewe.
It was only in 2006, ten years after the clone sheep was born and Wilmut had already entered the scientific hall of fame, that he admitted that Campell actually deserved the title of Dolly’s father. Two years later, Wilmut, Campell and cell researcher and later Nobel Prize winner Shin’ya Yamanaka received the $1.2 million Shaw Prize Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine for their findings in embryology and stem cell research.
Keith Campbell at a lecture in 2005. : Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb
From then on, Campell and Wilmut shared the title “Dolly’s father”. The sheep with two human fathers had to be euthanized in 2003, and Keith Campell died in 2012. On September 11, 2023, Sir Ian Wilmut also died at the age of 79.
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