Begining of cloning on a day like today:

Dolly folly

Dilmika Tennakoon

It is amazing that a Scottish sheep could win the popularity of the whole. Dolly is not an ordinary sheep who was born as a result of mating. She was the first mammal to be produced by an adult cell, rather than an embryo (fertilized egg). Though many animals were cloned before Dolly, cloning of Dolly made a huge uproar in the world. This was a major scientific breakthrough achieved by Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland.

Dolly was an exact genetic copy of her biological mother. But she was not an identical twin of her mother. The reason for this is that Dolly was not developed from the same fertilized egg. Her DNA was taken from a mature cell of her mother. Dolly was a sheep created totally by design. Her name was also selected to appeal the public.

Reason behind the creation

Animal cloning from an adult cell is more complex than cloning a plant. Before Dolly, scientists thought that many genes in adult cells are permanently inactive and week. They believed that only the genes in the fertilized egg or very young animals are powerful and capable of generating a new organism. But this old theory turned upside down with the birth of Dolly. Cloned Dolly became an overnight hit.

Many scientists said that cloning of Dolly would be a failure. But it was made possible by the hard work of the research team.

They tried 277 times to create a cloned sheep before Dolly. After the huge success of cloning Dolly, many sheep have been cloned using adult cells. Not only sheep; animals like mice, rabbits, horses, donkeys, pigs, goats and cattle were also used in the cloning process.

However Dolly was subjected to many arguments in terms of ethics. This ethical issue was raised as there is a possibility to produce cloned human babies in a similar process.

The reason for creating Dolly in the first place was that scientists wanted to find ways to produce livestock that carry specific genetic traits. Two biotechnology companies funded the research. They wanted to find ways to produce animals that carry certain proteins in their milk. The theory was to develop animals with necessary characteristics to carry protein and then clone those animals to produce a large group of animals that carry the same traits.

Birth of Dolly

As other cloned animals, Dolly started her life in a test tube. Once the normal development of Dolly was confirmed, the embryo was planted in a female sheep. The pregnancy went without a problem. Finally Dolly was born on July 5, 1996. She was completely healthy when she was born and did not face any neonatal problems at birth like other cloned animals.

The birth of Dolly was kept as a secret from the press in the first few months. Once the results were released it became the world’s hottest scientific news. Though the Scottish scientists thought that the interest of the press in Dolly would go down with time, Dolly enjoyed the limelight through out her life.

Dolly spent a normal life. Scientists decided to allow her to breed. A small Welsh mountain male was selected as her mate and they gave birth to six lambs. She first gave birth to Bonnie in 1998. She produced normal offspring. This proved that such cloned animals can reproduce.

Dolly’s illness

Dolly developed a stiff walk. Medical tests proved that she was suffering from arthritis. This news was a blow to every one. Cedric, another cloned sheep died in January 2000. The post mortem of Cedric revealed that he had a disease caused by a virus. Since the virus is infectious and incurable researchers believed that Dolly was also infected with the same virus.

However this viral disease was difficult to cope with. Researchers thought that if Dolly did develop the disease, she should not be allowed to suffer.

She was exposed to daily health check ups. Her weight was measured weekly. She remained healthy until February 10, 2003.

One day an animal care worker reported that he had noted that Dolly was coughing. She was screened immediately.

Unfortunately the scans confirmed that tumours were growing in Dolly’s lung. It was finally decided that she would be put down. She died peacefully on February 14, 2003.

Dolly died prematurely. She could only live six and a half years though the life expectancy of a sheep is 11 to 12 years. This showed that the scientists’ cloning techniques were inefficient and required further research. However researchers are still trying to improve the techniques used to create Dolly.