"Dolly" the cloning

Cloning, creating a copy of living matter, such as a cell or organism. The copies produced through cloning have identical genetic makeup and are known as clones. Many organisms in nature reproduce by cloning. Scientists use cloning techniques in the laboratory to create copies of cells or organisms with valuable traits. Their work aims to find practical applications for cloning that will produce advances in medicine, biological research, and industry.

He ewe Dolly (July 5, 1996 – February 14, 2003) was the first animal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer.^[1][2] She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her birth was announced on February 22, 1997 and she lived until the age of six.^[3]

The cell used as the donor for the cloning of Dolly was taken from a mammary gland, and the production of a healthy clone therefore proved that a cell taken from a specific body part could recreate a whole individual. More specifically, the production of Dolly showed that mature differentiated somatic cells in an adult animal's body could under some circumstances revert back to an undifferentiated pluripotent form and then develop into any part of an animal. As Dolly was cloned from part of a mammary gland, she was named after the famously busty country western singer Dolly Parton.