Wilmut, Campbell and Dolly the sheep

Another noteworthy biological discovery from the animal kingdom is the work of Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell at the Roslin Institute to bring us Dolly the sheep.

Both Wilmut and Campbell were brilliant and highly skilled scientists who were interested in animals and the study of genetic manipulation to clone living species. Their paths crossed in the early 1990s at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.

Campbell and Wilmut’s intrigue about embryology and cloning led them, with an extensive research team, to complete the cloning of the sheep.

After a few years of testing genetically modified cells from different types of sheep, gene manipulation was successful; In 1996, Dolly the sheep was created in a laboratory and was born to a pregnant mother. To find out precisely how Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell used science to clone an animal, read this article  to learn more.

But why was Dolly the sheep so important in the world of science? When Dolly was born and subsequently introduced to the world, the media went berserk and biologists around the world praised the Roslin Institute team for their impressive effort. Dolly the sheep was so important because it was the first mammal to be cloned from an animal cell.

The creation of the embryo, the gestation period and the birth showed biologists that cells and genes could be manipulated to create an exact copy of the animal from which they came. Following the cloning of Dolly the sheep, much more funding has been devoted to the fields of embryology and cloning.

Named after Dolly Parton, Dolly the sheep gave birth to six lambs in her lifetime and lived very quietly at the Roslin Institute until her death in early 2003. Wilmut, Campbell and Dolly the sheep