The British scientist who led the team that created Dolly the sheep – a breakthrough in cloning – has died at the age of 79, his former university announced on Monday.
Ian Wilmut, who revealed in 2018 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, led the team at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, that cloned Dolly in 1996.
This sheep was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, and the discovery made news around the world and led to new developments in medical and animal research.
Peter Mathieson, vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, praised Wilmut as “a titan of the scientific world” whose work in cloning Dolly “transformed scientific thinking at the time”.
“This discovery continues to fuel many of the advances made in regenerative medicine that we see today,” he said in a statement.
Bruce Whitelaw, current director of the Roslin Institute, noted that this was “sad news.” “Science has lost a household name,” he added.
Wilmut retired from the University of Edinburgh in 2012, but in 2018 he announced support for further research into Parkinson’s disease, which revealed he had been diagnosed with the progressive and incurable brain disease, which can cause uncontrollable movements such as tremors.
“There was a sense of clarity. Well, at least now we know and we can start doing things about it,” Wilmut told the BBC at the time.
Parkinson’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease and affects more than 8.5 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Source: DN
