Ian Wilmut
Ian Wilmut is a prominent British embryologist and geneticist best known for his pioneering work in cloning. He obtained his Ph.D. in animal genetic engineering from the University of Cambridge in 1971 and subsequently joined the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Wilmut gained international fame in 1996 when he led a team that successfully cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, from an adult cell. This groundbreaking achievement challenged longstanding beliefs about the feasibility of cloning and spurred significant ethical debates surrounding the technology.
In addition to Dolly, Wilmut's research team also created Polly, a lamb incorporating a human gene, which further broadened the scope of cloning applications. His work has implications for both medicine and agriculture, suggesting that cloned animals could produce essential human proteins and enhance livestock quality. Wilmut later shifted his focus to stem cell research, advocating for non-embryonic methods of cell reprogramming. Throughout his career, he has received numerous accolades for his contributions, including being appointed to the Order of the British Empire and elected as a fellow of the Royal Society. Wilmut's legacy continues to influence discussions on biotechnology and its potential to address complex challenges in healthcare and agriculture.
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Ian Wilmut
- Born: July 7, 1944
- Birthplace: Hampton Lucy, England
- Died: September 10, 2023
- Place of death: Midlothian, Scotland
Identification: English reproductive biologist
Wilmut, one of the world’s foremost authorities on biotechnology and genetic engineering, conducted a landmark cloning experiment in 1996 that produced Dolly the sheep, the first mammal clone ever produced from adult cells.
Ian Wilmut earned his Ph.D. in animal genetic engineering from Darwin College at the University of Cambridge in 1971. One of his first projects, conducted in 1973, involved the birth of the first calf ever reproduced from a frozen embryo. In 1974 Wilmut took a job with the Animal Breeding Research Station, later known as the Roslin Institute, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
In 1990 Wilmut hired cell cycle biologist Keith Campbell to assist him with cloning studies at the Roslin Institute. Their first success came in 1995 with the birth of Megan and Morag, two Welsh mountain sheep cloned from differentiated embryo cells. The achievement came as the result of a new technique pioneered by Wilmut and Campbell that involved starving embryo cells before transferring their nuclei to fertilized egg cells. The technique synchronized the cell cycles of both cells and led Wilmut and Campbell to believe that any type of cell could be used to produce a clone.
In the landmark cloning experiment that produced the Finn-Dorset lamb Dolly, Wilmut removed udder cells from a six-year-old adult ewe and isolated the cells to starve them of nutrients, thereby arresting their growth and division. Next, he extracted an egg cell from another ewe and removed its nucleus, which contained the second ewe’s genetic material. Following the joining of the egg cell with one of the udder cells, Wilmut implanted the resultant embryo into a surrogate mother. Dolly was born on July 5, 1996, but the success of the experiment was kept secret until February, 1997, to give Wilmut and his scientific team time to tabulate the results fully, be assured of Dolly’s survival, and secure a patent for their technique. Wilmut’s breakthrough ended decades of skepticism among scientists, many of whom had believed that cloning would never be possible for any animal. Dolly lived for seven years, dying of a respiratory illness in 2003.
On July 25, 1997, Wilmut and Campbell shocked the world again when they announced the birth of Polly, a lamb with a human gene in every cell of its body. Using a method similar to the one they had used for cloning Dolly, the scientists had cloned Polly from a fetal skin cell that had a human gene. Wilmut and his research team had opened up a new frontier of science.
The announcements of the births of Dolly and Polly stirred the scientific community and the public, kicking off a large-scale debate regarding the ethics and direction of cloning research. In particular, people feared the possibility that human clones would be produced. Wilmut, however, stated that he saw no reason for scientists to pursue the first cloning of a human; he pointed instead to the new possibilities that the cloning of animals could hold for the treatment of human disease. Cloned animals could act as manufacturing plants for valuable human proteins, which are costly and difficult to produce in large amounts elsewhere. In addition, agriculture could benefit from the cloning of high-quality animals, such as the best milk-producing cows and the best wool-producing sheep.
Wilmut went on to clone human embryos in order to produce embryonic stem cells for research and study the inheritance of degenerative diseases. In 2005, he took a professorship in reproductive science at the University of Edinburgh. There he founded the school's Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine in 2006 and served as its head until 2011. After it became possible to revert adult skin cells to stem cells, Wilmut adopted that method and publicly repudiated therapeutic embryonic cloning in 2008.
For his contributions to science, Wilmut has received numerous honors. He was inducted into the American Academy of Achievement in 1997, elected a fellow of the British Royal Society in 2002, and named to the order of the British Empire in 2007.
Bibliography
Avise, John C. The Hope, Hype, and Reality of Genetic Engineering: Remarkable Stories from Agriculture, Industry, Medicine, and the Environment. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.
"Sir Ian Wilmut." Academy of Achievement. Amer. Acad. of Achievement, 25 Oct. 2010. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.
Topping, Alexandra. "Professor Who Created Dolly the Sheep to Abandon Cloning." Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 16 Nov. 2007. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.
Wade, Nicholas. "The Clone Named Dolly." New York Times. New York Times, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.
Wilmut, Ian, and Roger Highfield. After Dolly: The Promise and Perils of Human Cloning. New York: Norton, 2007. Print.
Wilmut, Ian, Keith Campbell, and Colin Tudge. The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control. New York: Farrar, 2000. Print.