Dolly didn’t get arthritis from cloning

FEARS that cloning gave Dolly the Sheep arthritis were unfounded, scientists said.

Dolly, born at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh in 1996, was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

There have been claims the process led her to her ageing prematurely and increased her vulnerability to age-related disease. She died in February 2003 aged six.

She was thought to have suffered early- onset osteoathritis, but an x-ray of her skeleton found no evidence of this.

Professor Sandra Corr, from the University of Glasgow, said the prevalence of the disease was similar to that observed in natural sheep and other clones.

‘As a result we conclude that the original concerns that cloning had caused early-onset osteoarthritis in Dolly were unfounded,’ she added.