Ian Wilmut, father of Dolly the sheep, dies

It was 1996 and many people were probably very impressed by the birth Dolly sheepfirst cloned mammal from an adult cell.

And the great forerunner of this scientific milestone is Sir Ian Wilmut, who led the University of Edinburgh team behind this achievement.

He died at 79 years old.

In 2017, Wilmut announced that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Professor Sir Ian Wilmut. “He was a titan of the scientific world,” he said. Sir Peter MathesonChancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, in a statement.

Matheson added that Wilmut’s breakthrough “transformed the scientific thinking of the time” and “continues to contribute to many of the advances made in the field of regenerative medicine that we see today.”

Dolly, named after singer Dolly Parton, was conceived by extracting DNA from a cell taken from the mammary gland of an adult sheep, placing it in an empty sheep egg and giving it an electric shock. This turned the egg into an embryo, which was then implanted into a surrogate ewe to carry the child.

Dolly died in 2003, having lived to 6 years, about half the typical lifespan of a sheep (10–12 years), and she had several clone sisters taken from the same batch of cells as her.

“Dolly’s birth and new understanding of the ability to change how cells function led researchers to consider other possible ways to modify cells,” Wilmut told LiveScience in 2017.