Dolly the sheep is honoured with plaque given to heroes of biology
DOLLY the sheep is to be honoured with a plaque as part of a project to celebrate heroes of biology.
The first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, she was born in 1996 and died in 2003.
A blue plaque celebrating Dolly and the team who created her will be unveiled by the Society of Biology at The Roslin Institute, Edinburgh University, where she was created.
It is one of a new series of 10 celebratory plaques being unveiled by the Society of Biology across the UK to celebrate eminent but sometimes unsung heroes of the science. Others being honoured include IVF pioneers Patrick Steptoe, Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy, Richard Owen, who invented the word “dinosaur”, and Dorothy Hodgkin, who discovered the structure of penicilli n. Si r Ian Wilmut, from Edinburgh University and lead researcher on the Dolly project, will give a speech at the unveiling ceremony.
He said: “The birth of Dolly, the first clone of an adult animal, revolutionised our understanding of the mechanisms that regulate development. We used to believe that once a cell had differentiated to a specific tissue type it could not be changed. The bir th of Dolly showed that this is not the case.
“This result stimulated research which is now providing revolutionary opportunities in medicine.” Dr William Ritchie, from Roslin Embryology, who worked with Sir Ian on the Dolly project, said: “To make the Dolly experiments successful, many p e ople were involved, from lab technicians to the farm staff caring for the animals to the surgeons and anaesthetists whose skills successfully transferred the embryos.
“All the people who gave their skills, effort and dedication to these experiments are immensely proud of the contributions which they made.” A statement from Louise Brown, the first “test-tube baby”, will be read at the plaque unveiling ceremony for Steptoe, Edwards and Purdy at their old clinic.
She said: “My mum always spoke with great affection of her visits to the little cottage hospital in Oldham where the biologists did such great work.”