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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > Ian Wilmut Quotes

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Ian Wilmut
(7 Jul 1944 - )

English embryologist who in 1996 supervised the team of scientists that produced a lamb named Dolly, the first mammal cloned from a cell from an adult.


Science Quotes by Ian Wilmut (4 quotes)

Fertilization of mammalian eggs is followed by successive cell divisions and progressive differentiation, first into the early embryo and subsequently into all of the cell types that make up the adult animal. Transfer of a single nucleus at a specific stage of development, to an enucleated unfertilized egg, provided an opportunity to investigate whether cellular differentiation to that stage involved irreversible genetic modification. The first offspring to develop from a differentiated cell were born after nuclear transfer from an embryo-derived cell line that had been induced to became quiescent. Using the same procedure, we now report the birth of live lambs from three new cell populations established from adult mammary gland, fetus and embryo. The fact that a lamb was derived from an adult cell confirms that differentiation of that cell did not involve the irreversible modification of genetic material required far development to term. The birth of lambs from differentiated fetal and adult cells also reinforces previous speculation that by inducing donor cells to became quiescent it will be possible to obtain normal development from a wide variety of differentiated cells.
[Co-author of paper announcing the cloned sheep, ‘Dolly’.]
— Ian Wilmut
In I. Wilmut, A. E. Schnieke, J. McWhir, et al., 'Viable Offspring Derived from Petal and Adult Mammalian Cells', Nature (1997), 385, 810.
Science quotes on:  |  Animal (651)  |  Author (175)  |  Birth (154)  |  Cell Division (6)  |  Clone (8)  |  Confirm (58)  |  Develop (278)  |  Development (441)  |  Differentiation (28)  |  Division (67)  |  Dolly (2)  |  Early (196)  |  Egg (71)  |  Embryo (30)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Fertilization (15)  |  First (1302)  |  Follow (389)  |  Genetic (110)  |  Genetics (105)  |  Gland (14)  |  Investigate (106)  |  Involve (93)  |  Involved (90)  |  Irreversible (12)  |  Lamb (6)  |  Live (650)  |  Mammal (41)  |  Material (366)  |  Modification (57)  |  New (1273)  |  Nuclear (110)  |  Nucleus (54)  |  Obtain (164)  |  Offspring (27)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Paper (192)  |  Population (115)  |  Possible (560)  |  Procedure (48)  |  Reinforce (5)  |  Required (108)  |  Single (365)  |  Specific (98)  |  Speculation (137)  |  Stage (152)  |  Successive (73)  |  Term (357)  |  Transfer (21)  |  Type (171)  |  Variety (138)  |  Wide (97)  |  Will (2350)

I see nothing wrong ethically with the idea of correcting single gene defects [through genetic engineering]. But I am concerned about any other kind of intervention, for anything else would be an experiment, [which would] impose our will on future generations [and take unreasonable chances] with their welfare ... [Thus] such intervention is beyond the scope of consideration.
— Ian Wilmut
in The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control
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It is difficult to imagine a greater imposition [than adding] genes to future generations that changes the nature of future people.
— Ian Wilmut
in The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control
Science quotes on:  |  Change (639)  |  Difficult (263)  |  Future (467)  |  Gene (105)  |  Generation (256)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Greater (288)  |  Imagine (176)  |  Nature (2017)  |  People (1031)

The pressures for human cloning are powerful; but, although it seems likely that somebody, at some time, will attempt it, we need not assume that it will ever become a common or significant feature of human life.
— Ian Wilmut
In The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Become (821)  |  Clone (8)  |  Cloning (8)  |  Common (447)  |  Genetic Engineering (16)  |  Human (1512)  |  Life (1870)  |  Powerful (145)  |  Pressure (69)  |  Significant (78)  |  Time (1911)  |  Will (2350)



Quotes by others about Ian Wilmut (1)

What politicians do not understand is that [Ian] Wilmut discovered not so much a technical trick as a new law of nature. We now know that an adult mammalian cell can fire up all the dormant genetic instructions that shut down as it divides and specializes and ages, and thus can become a source of new life. You can outlaw technique; you cannot repeal biology.
Writing after Wilmut's successful cloning of the sheep, Dolly, that research on the cloning of human beings cannot be suppressed.
'A Special Report on Cloning'. Charles Krauthammer in Time (10 Mar 1997).
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See also:
  • 7 Jul - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Wilmut's birth.
  • The Second Creation: Dolly and the Age of Biological Control, by Ian Wilmut, et al. - book suggestion.

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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