Steen Malte Willadsen (born 1943 in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

) is a Danish

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

credited with being the first to clone a mammal using

nuclear transfer Nuclear transfer is a form of cloning. The step involves removing the DNA from an oocyte (unfertilised egg), and injecting the nucleus which contains the DNA to be cloned. In rare instances, the newly constructed cell will divide normally, rep ...

. Willadsen graduated from the

Royal Veterinary College of Copenhagen The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University ( da, Kongelige Veterinær- og Landbohøjskole, abbr. KVL) was a veterinary and agricultural science university in Denmark. It was founded in 1856 and operated until 2007, when it became a part of t ...

(1969), and received a PhD in reproductive physiology from there (1973). In 1984, at the British

Agricultural Research Council The Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) was a British Research Council responsible for funding and managing scientific and technological developments in farming and horticulture. History The AFRC was formed in 1983 from its predecessor, ...

's Institute of Animal Physiology, Cambridge, he successfully used cells from early embryos to clone sheep by nuclear transfer. The procedure he developed was essentially the one used a decade later by Wilmut et al. to produce Dolly, the sheep, although in the latter case, nuclei from a mature sheep, i.e. not from sheep embryos, were used. Prior to the nuclear transfer experiments, Willadsen had developed methods for freezing sheep and cow embryos, and embryo manipulation methods for producing genetically identical animals, primarily identical twins in sheep, cattle, pigs, and horses, and for producing mammalian chimaeras, including interspecies chimaeras.Fehilly, C.B., Willadsen, S.M., and Tucker, E.M. (1984): Inter-specific chimaerism between domestic sheep (Ovis aries)and domestic goat (Capra hircus). Nature, Lond. 307, 634 - 636

References

External links

Scientist Profile : Steen Willadsen
Living people 1943 births Danish scientists {{Denmark-scientist-stub