Ian Wilmut

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Sir Ian Wilmut
Born (1944-07-07) 7 July 1944 (age 79)[1]
Hampton Lucy, England
Residence Edinburgh, Scotland
Nationality English
Fields Embryologist
Institutions The Roslin Institute
University of Edinburgh
Alma mater University of Nottingham
University of Cambridge
Thesis The preservation of boar semen (1971)
Doctoral advisor Christopher Polge
Known for Cloning sheep
Notable awards OBE, FRS, FMedSci, FRSE, 1997 Time man of the year runner up [2]

Sir Ian Wilmut, OBE FRS FMedSci FRSE[3] (born 7 July 1944) is a British embryologist and Chair of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine[4] at the University of Edinburgh.[5] He is best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a Finnish Dorset lamb named Dolly.[6][7][8][9] He was granted an OBE in 1999 for services to embryo development.[10] In December 2007 it was announced that he would be knighted in the 2008 New Year Honours.[11]

Early life and career

Wilmut was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, England.[12] Wilmut's father, Leonard Wilmut, was a mathematics teacher who suffered from diabetes for fifty years eventually causing blindness.[13] He was a student of the former Boys' High School, in Scarborough, where his father taught.[14] Wilmut's early desire was to embark on a naval career, but he was unable to do so due to his colour blindness.[15] As a school boy, Wilmut worked as a farm hand on weekends, which inspired him to study Agriculture at the University of Nottingham.[14][16]

In 1966 Wilmut spent 8 weeks working in the laboratory of Christopher Polge, who is credited with developing the technique of cryopreservation in 1949.[17] The following year, Wilmut joined Polge's laboratory to undertake a research Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge (Darwin College), from which he graduated in 1971.[18] Wilmut has since been involved in research focusing on gametes and embryogenesis including working at the Roslin Institute.[14] In 1998 he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award.

Wilmut was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a lamb named Dolly.[8][9] Dolly died of a respiratory disease in 2003. However, in 2008 Wilmut announced that he is to abandon the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer[19] by which Dolly was created in favour of an alternative technique developed by Shinya Yamanaka. This method has been used in mice to derive pluripotent stem cells from differentiated adult skin cells, thus circumventing the need to generate embryonic stem cells. Wilmut believes that this method holds greater potential for the treatment of degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease and to treat stroke and heart attack patients.[20]

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"Dolly was a bonus, sometimes when scientists work hard, they also get lucky, and that's what happened."[2]

Ian Wilmut, quoted in Time

Wilmut led the team that created Dolly but credits his colleague Keith Campbell with "66 per cent" of the invention that made Dolly's birth possible.[21] This supervisory role is consistent with the post of principal investigator held by Wilmut at the time of Dolly's creation.

Wilmut is an Emeritus Professor at the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine [22] at the University of Edinburgh and in 2008 was knighted in the New Year Honours for services to science.[15]

In 2006 his book After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning was published, co-authored with Roger Highfield.

References

  1. ↑ "Ian Wilmut". World of Genetics. Gale. 2006. Gale Document Number: GALE|K2433100254. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
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  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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