July 5 - Dolly, the Cloned Sheep, is Born

This Day in History: 5 July 2020

 

5 July 1996

 

24 years ago, today, Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell. As a cloned lamb, Dolly was given the code-name of '6LL3', but was renamed after singer Dolly Parton, reportedly suggested by one of the stockmen assisting with her birth that took place at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. The mammary cell Dolly was born from had been taken from the udder of a six-year-old ewe and cultured in a lab using microscopic needles. A number of normal eggs were produced and implanted into surrogate ewes, one of them eventually giving birth to Dolly.

 

Her birth was announced publicly and was met with a frenzy of controversy. Some supported the new cloning technology for its possibilities in advancing medicine, helping to treat degenerative nerve disease with the collection of stem cells, and even preserving endangered species. On the other hand, some critics saw the new technique as potentially unethical and unsafe, especially when it was applied to the next logical step of human cloning. Dolly was mated later in her life to a male sheep named David, and they gave birth to four lambs. Sadly, in January 2002, she was found to have arthritis in her hind legs, which raised questions about genetic abnormalities in the cloning process. At the age of six, Dolly was put down after suffering from a progressive lung disease, raising even more questions about the safety of cloning. Dolly was stuffed and is now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

 

Want to find out more about Dolly, the cloned sheep? Click here for more information about Dolly's life, or here for a video about the creation of Dolly.