{"id":32776,"date":"2023-11-16T17:15:49","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b4d9ad92-31d4-4db1-92cb-a222637b66d9"},"modified":"2023-11-16T17:39:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:39:25","slug":"who-was-dolly-the-sheep-and-what-happened-to-her-the-story-of-the-cloned-sheep","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/rss_feed\/who-was-dolly-the-sheep-and-what-happened-to-her-the-story-of-the-cloned-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was Dolly the Sheep and what happened to her? The story of the cloned sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Henson recounts the story of Dolly the Sheep, a 1990s cloned superstar of science <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 16 November 2023 at 16:15 PM<\/p>

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We\u2019ve all seen buildings that have one of those commemorative blue plaques on the wall. It\u2019s hard not to rush over to find out which famous writer, film star or artist once \u201clived here\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>

But in Edinburgh the Roslin Institute have put up a blue plaque to a renowned character who didn\u2019t publish, act in or paint anything – Dolly the Sheep.\u00a0<\/p>

Who was Dolly the Sheep? <\/h2>

For a short time Dolly was the superstar of science and her birth, in July 1996, changed the way we think about biology; she was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.<\/p>

It was a major scientific breakthrough and it led directly to modern stem cell therapies, designed to treat and prevent disease or medical conditions. There\u2019s no denying that this was big news. Although Dolly\u2019s story began, like so many scientific discoveries, in a humble test-tube. \u00a0<\/p>

When was Dolly the Sheep cloned?<\/h2>

In 1996 scientists at the Institute inserted DNA from a single udder cell of a Finn-Dorset ewe into an egg and implanted it in a surrogate mother. That meant that Dolly was an exact genetic \u2018copy\u2019 of the animal from which the single cell was taken and totally unrelated to the surrogate ewe.<\/p>

This was the long-awaited breakthrough because up until that time, mammal clones had only been produced from the DNA of embryos, not adult cells. In fact, just the year before, the Edinburgh team had produced two identical sheep<\/a> that were cloned from an original embryo. But Dolly was something altogether different.<\/p>

When the world learned the news, seven months later, it led to high-profile arguments about the legal and ethical implications. Animal rights activists were angered by the development and religious groups voiced their concern.\u00a0<\/p>

If anyone thought that Dolly would be followed by widespread flocks and herds of cloned animals in the UK, or even a generation of human clones, then their predictions fell short. There\u2019s been no real-life Jurassic Park<\/em>. At the time, the man who led the team at Roslin, Dr Ian Wilmut, insisted that the idea of human cloning was \u201crepugnant and illegal\u201d. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>

Since then other mammals have been cloned with varying degrees of success, including cattle<\/a>, horses<\/a>, pigs<\/a> and goats.There\u2019s particular interest in whether the technology could help endangered species in the future and it\u2019s an area that organisations such as the Rare Breeds Survival Trust <\/a>watch with curiosity. However, Dolly\u2019s overriding impact is in stem-cell research \u2013 generating new tissue from a patient\u2019s own cells and different ways to produce medicines.\u00a0<\/p>

When did Dolly the Sheep die?<\/h2>

So what became of the ewe who, for a brief time, became the world\u2019s most famous sheep? Well, after breeding with a Welsh Mountain ram, she gave birth to a total of six lambs.<\/a> But eventually poor old Dolly developed lung disease and arthritis and, in 2003, she was put down.\u00a0<\/p>

I don\u2019t know if there are such things as blue plaque-spotters with tick-lists, but if there are, then they must rate Dolly\u2019s commemorative plaque at Roslin as unique \u2013 instead of the usual \u201clived here\u201d; her inscription reads \u201ccreated at this institute\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>