Friday, August 19, 2005

Dolly the sheep

The sheep named Dolly (July 5, 1996 - February 14, 2003) was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell. She was created at the Roslin Institute in Scotland and lived there until her death nearly seven years later. Scientists did not announce her birth until February 22, 1997, however.
The name "Dolly" came from a suggestion by the stockmen who helped in the process, in honour of Dolly Parton, because the cloned cell was a mammary cell [1]. The particular technique that was made famous by her birth, is somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which the nucleus from one of the donor's non-reproductive cells, is placed into a de-nucleated embryonic cell (which is then coaxed into developing into a fetus). When Dolly was cloned in 1996 from a cell taken from a 6 year old ewe, she became the centre of a controversy that still continues today.
On April 9, 2003 her stuffed remains were placed in state at Edinburgh's Royal Museum, part of the National Museums of Scotland.