
- Roslin, Scotland
- Finn-Dorset
- Dolly Parton
Dolly, a female Finn Dorset sheep, lived from 1996 to 2003 and made history as the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. Her birth on 5 July 1996, was announced by British developmental biologist Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, Scotland, on 22 February 1997. This significant milestone in science dispelled the long-standing belief that adult mammals could not be cloned and sparked a debate about the potential applications and ethical implications of mammalian cloning technology. The process of creating Dolly involved nuclear transfer, where a cell was extracted from her mammary gland, proving that cloning from a mature cell originating from a specific body part was possible.
When asked about Dolly’s name Professor Wilmut said,
Dolly is derived from a mammary gland cell and we couldn’t think of a more impressive pair of glands than Dolly Parton’s

