Dolly the sheep may have pushed stem cell research forward 20 years, says expert

Stem cell research might be 20 years behind where it is today if Dolly the Sheep had never been born, according to the scientist whose team created the world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Speaking on the eve of Dolly's 20th anniversary, Professor Sir Ian Wilmut said widespread use of stem cell treatments was still likely to be "decades away". He admitted that in the early days, scientists including himself had been carried away by the prospect of revolutionary stem cell therapies. Controversially, he added that he did not believe there should be a "red line" ban on ethical grounds to modifying inherited DNA in human eggs and sperm. It was his personal view that such "germ line" research either to defeat disease or provide broadly approved "enhancements" could be justified. Dolly, who was born at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, on July 5 1996, made history by being the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. Sir Ian said he had never hidden the fact that Dolly's creation was largely a stroke of luck. She was the only surviving lamb from 277 cloning attempts and was created from an udder cell taken from a six-year-old Finn Dorset sheep. The pioneering technique the...