Sir Ian Wilmut (7 July 1944 – 10 September 2023) was a British

embryologist Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos and ...

and the chair of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. He was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first

cloned Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...

a mammal from an adult

somatic cell In cellular biology, a somatic cell (), or vegetal cell, is any biological cell forming the body of a multicellular organism other than a gamete, germ cell, gametocyte or undifferentiated stem cell. Somatic cells compose the body of an organism ...

, a

Finnish Dorset The Finn-Dorset or Finn Dorset is a British and Irish sheep, a cross-breed of the Finnsheep with the Dorset Horn.Finn Dorsets and related cross-breeds have been bred for the properties of the Finnsheep's prolificacy and the Dorset's meat conformati ...

lamb named Dolly. Wilmut was appointed

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in 1999 for services to embryo development and

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

in the

2008 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2008 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 29 December 2007, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 2008. The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and ...

. He, Keith Campbell and

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He is a professor and the director emeritus of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application, Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the U ...

jointly received the 2008

Shaw Prize The Shaw Prize is a set of three annual awards presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation in the fields of astronomy, medicine and life sciences, and mathematical sciences. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, by Hong Kong entertainment mogul and p ...

for Medicine and Life Sciences for their work on

cell differentiation Cellular differentiation is the process in which a stem cell changes from one type to a differentiated one. Usually, the cell changes to a more specialized type. Differentiation happens multiple times during the development of a multicellular ...

in mammals.

Early life and education

Wilmut was born in

Hampton Lucy Hampton Lucy is a village and civil parish on the River Avon, northeast of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire England. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 census was 566. History The grammar school at Hampton Lucy was ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England, on 7 July 1944. Wilmut's father, Leonard Wilmut, was a mathematics teacher who suffered from

diabetes Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...

for fifty years, which eventually caused him to become blind. The younger Wilmut attended the Boys' High School in

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, sub ...

, where his father taught. His early desire was to embark on a naval career, but he was unable to do so due to his

colour blindness Color blindness, color vision deficiency (CVD) or color deficiency is the decreased ability to see color or differences in color. The severity of color blindness ranges from mostly unnoticeable to full absence of color perception. Color bl ...

. As a schoolboy, Wilmut worked as a farm hand on weekends, which inspired him to study

Agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

. In 1966, Wilmut spent eight weeks working in the laboratory of

Christopher Polge Ernest John Christopher Polge (16 August 1926 – 17 August 2006) was an English biologist, most noted for his work in cryopreservation. The son of a Buckinghamshire farmer, he was educated at Bootham School in York, before going to the Univers ...

, who is credited with developing the technique of

cryopreservation Cryopreservation or cryoconservation is a process where biological material - cells, tissues, or organs - are frozen to preserve the material for an extended period of time. At low temperatures (typically or using liquid nitrogen) any cell ...

in 1949. The following year Wilmut joined Polge's laboratory to undertake a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, from where he graduated in 1971 with a thesis on

semen cryopreservation Semen cryopreservation (commonly called sperm banking or sperm freezing) is a procedure to preserve sperm cells. Semen can be used successfully indefinitely after cryopreservation. It can be used for sperm donation where the recipient wants the tre ...

. During this time he was a postgraduate student at Darwin College.

Career and research

After completing his PhD, he was involved in research focusing on gametes and embryogenesis, including working at the

Roslin Institute The Roslin Institute is an animal sciences research institute at Easter Bush, Midlothian, Scotland, part of the University of Edinburgh, and is funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. It is best known for creating ...

. Wilmut was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a lamb named Dolly. She died of a respiratory disease in 2003. In 2008 Wilmut announced that he would abandon the technique of

somatic cell nuclear transfer In genetics and developmental biology, somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is a laboratory strategy for creating a viable embryo from a body cell and an egg cell. The technique consists of taking a denucleated oocyte (egg cell) and implanti ...

by which Dolly was created in favour of an alternative technique developed by

. This method has been used in mice to derive

pluripotent Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. The more cell types a cell can differentiate into, the greater its potency. Potency is also described as the gene activation potential within a cell, which like a continuum ...

stem cells from differentiated adult skin cells, thus circumventing the need to generate embryonic stem cells. Wilmut believed that this method holds greater potential for the treatment of degenerative conditions such as

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a neurodegenerative disease primarily of the central nervous system, affecting both motor system, motor and non-motor systems. Symptoms typically develop gradually and non-motor issues become ...

and to treat stroke and heart attack patients. Wilmut led the team that created Dolly, but in 2006 admitted his colleague Keith Campbell deserved "66 per cent" of the invention that made Dolly's birth possible, and that the statement "I did not create Dolly" was accurate. His supervisory role is consistent with the post of principal investigator held by Wilmut at the time of Dolly's creation. Wilmut was an Emeritus Professor at the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the

and in 2008 was

in the

New Year Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...

for services to science. Wilmut and Campbell, in conjunction with

Colin Tudge Colin Hiram Tudge (born 22 April 1943) is a British biologist, science writer and broadcaster. Tudge was born and brought up in south London and attended Dulwich College, from where he won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, studying zoolo ...

, published ''The Second Creation'' in 2000. In 2006 Wilmut's book ''After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning'' was published, co-authored with

Roger Highfield Roger Ronald Highfield (born 1958 in Griffithstown, Wales) is an author, science journalist, broadcaster and Science Director at the Science Museum Group. Education Highfield was educated at Chase Side Primary School in Enfield and Christ's ...

Death

Wilmut died from complications of

on 10 September 2023, aged 79.

Awards and honours

In 1998 he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award and the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...

. Wilmut was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the

1999 Birthday Honours The 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday were announced on 7 June 1999 in New Zealand and Niue, and on 12 June 1999 in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. The recipients of honours are displayed h ...

"for services to Embryo Development" and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2002. -- He was also an elected

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) is an award for medical scientists who are judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the "excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of the ...

in 1999 and

Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

in 2000. He was elected an

EMBO Member Membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is an award granted by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in recognition of "research excellence and the outstanding achievements made by a life scientist". , 88 EMB ...

in 2003. In 1997 Wilmut was ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine man of the year runner up. He was

in the

for services to science.

Publications

* *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilmut, Ian 1944 births 2023 deaths People from Warwickshire Alumni of the University of Nottingham Cloning Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization English atheists English inventors English geneticists Academics of the University of Edinburgh Alumni of Darwin College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Knights Bachelor Officers of the Order of the British Empire Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences British embryologists People educated at Scarborough High School for Boys Deaths from Parkinson's disease