20. Celebrate the Birth and Cloning of Dolly the Sheep (July 5th)
Were you born in the early 90s? Maybe you remember the revolution that Dolly the sheep did to the world. Named after singer and actress Dolly Parton, this sheep is the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell. It was something people attempted for decades. In some cases, there have been cloning from embryonic cells, but never from an adult cell. A team of scientists from the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, cloned her. They originally code-named it “6LL3”. They took the adult cells from an udder of a six-year-old ewe that was later cultured in a lab using microscopic needles, a method used in human fertility treatments.
After many attempts and producing a few regular eggs, scientists implanted them into surrogate ewes. Moreover, 148 days later, Dolly was born on July 5th, 1996, and was announced publicly in February 1997. It became a dream come thru for many scientists, but for other and part of the public, this was a nightmare filled with controversy. At the same time, many saw this as a lead for scientific advances to treat many degenerative nerve diseases like Alzheimer’s or even an excellent way to save endangered species. Nevertheless, others thought it was unethical and dangerous since it could lead to human cloning. Anyway, Dolly the sheep’s birth was a scientific achievement that we can celebrate each year.