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Human cloning has grabbed people's imagination, but that
is merely a diversion -- and one we personally regret and find distasteful. We
did not make Dolly for that…Our work completes the biotechnological trio: genetic
engineering, genomics, cloning. It also provides an extraordinarily powerful scientific
model for studying the interactions of the genes and their surroundings -- interactions
that account for so much of development and disease. Taken together, the new biotechnologies
and the pending scientific insights will be immensely powerful. Truly they will
take humanity into the age of biological control.
The cloning of Dolly in 1996 from the cell of an adult sheep was a pivotal moment
in history. For the first time, a team of scientists, led by Ian Wilmut and Keith
Campbell at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, was able to clone a whole mammal
using a single cultured adult body cell, a breakthrough that revolutionized three
technologies and brought science ever closer to the possibility of human cloning. In
this definitive account, the scientists who accomplished this stunning feat explain
their hypotheses and experiments, their conclusions, and the implications of their
work. Researchers have already incorporated into sheep the gene for human factor
1X, a blood-clotting protein used to treat hemophilia. In the future, cultures
of mammary cells may prove to be valuable donor material, and genetically modified
animal organs may be transplanted into humans. Normal pig organs, for example,
are rapidly destroyed by the human immune system, but if altered genetically,
they could alleviate the serious shortage of available organs. Genetically engineered
sheep are also expected to be valuable as models for genetic defects that mimic
human disorders such as cystic fibrosis, and for cell-based therapies for diseases
-- such as Parkinson's, diabetes, and muscular dystrophy -- that lack universally
dependable treatments. But what are the ethical issues
raised by this pioneering research, and how are we to reconcile them with the
enormous possibilities? Written with award-winning science writer Colin Tudge,
The Second Creation is a landmark work that details the most exciting and
challenging scientific discovery of the twentieth century -- with the furthest-reaching
ramifications for the twenty-first. Ian Wilmut
studied embryology at Nottingham University and received his doctoral degree at
Cambridge University before joining the Animal Breeding Research Station, an independent
research institution that eventually became the Roslin Institute. He was the leader
of the team that cloned Dolly. Keith Campbell
studied microbiology at Queen Elizabeth College, London, and obtained a D. Phil.
From The University of Sussex. A cell biologist and embryologist now working at
the University of Nottingham, he joined the Roslin Institute in 1991 to work on
the project that resulted in Dolly. Colin Tudge
was educated at Cambridge University, where he majored in zoology. A writer and
broadcaster, he is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy at the
London School of Economics. Tudge is the author of more than a dozen books, including
most recently, The Variety of Life: A Survey and a Celebration of All the
Creatures That Have Ever Lived, published by Oxford University Press. |
