Dolly euthanized

God does life the best...

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washingtonpost.com
Dolly the Cloned Sheep Put to Death


By JANE WARDELL
The Associated Press
Friday, February 14, 2003; 1:14 PM


Dolly the sheep, the world's first mammal cloned from an adult, was euthanized after being diagnosed with progressive lung disease, her creators said Friday.

The decision to end the life of 6-year-old Dolly was made after a veterinary examination confirmed the lung disease, a statement from the Roslin Institute said.

Dr. Harry Griffin of the institute said Friday that sheep can live to 11 or 12 years and lung infections are common in older sheep, particularly those like which are kept indoors.

"A full post-mortem is being conducted and we will report any significant findings," Griffin said.

Dolly was born July 5, 1996 in a research compound of the Scottish institute, and she created an international sensation when the achievement was announced on Feb. 23, 1997.

Researchers had previously cloned sheep from fetal and embryonic cells, but until Dolly it was unknown whether an adult cell could reprogram itself to develop into a new being.

The Dolly breakthrough heightened speculation that human cloning inevitably would become possible.

Dolly, a Finn Dorset sheep named after the singer Dolly Parton, bred normally on two occasions with a Welsh mountain ram called David, first giving birth to Bonnie in April 1998 and then to three more lambs in 1999.

In 1999, scientists noticed that the cells in Dolly's body - cloned from a 6-year-old sheep - had started to show signs of wear more typical of an older animal.

Then in Jan. 2002, her creators announced she had developed arthritis at the relatively early age of 5 1/2 years, stirring debate over whether cloning procedures might be flawed.

Some geneticists said the finding provided evidence that researchers could not manufacture copies of animals without the original genetic blueprint eventually wearing out.

There are now hundreds of animal clones around the world, including cows, pigs, mice and goats, many of them appearing robust and healthy.

But many attempts to clone animals have ended in failure. Deformed fetuses have died in the womb with oversized organs, while others were born dead. Still others died days after being born, some twice as large as they should have been.

Dolly's body has been promised to the National Museum of Scotland and will eventually be put on display in Edinburgh, the Roslin Institute said.

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On the Net:

Roslin Institute, http://www.roslin.ac.uk/news/

 

It's not just sad, although it IS that -- but they talk of cloning humans. Too much is going too wrong with clones -- how can we risk babies to this experiment?

 

Abiyah, I think, basically, you have hit the nail on the head. There has been an assumption for a long time that genes are all that determine the new organism and that the rest of the cell sort of exists to perpetuate the genes. Under this misconception, just shooting a new batch of genetic material into an egg should be all that is needed for cloning.

But more and more research is showing that the genetic material in the nucleus is only part of the story. For instance, we have no idea how an E.coli bacteria knows how to be the shape it is. There is nothing in the genes which seem to indicate shape. There is some kind of interaction with the cell itself which is still not understood.

And that is aside from point of entry for the sperm in sexual reproduction.

The whole process is appearing to be MUCH more complex than anyone recognized (let alone understood!) up until now. I am aware of two biochemists who are deeply involved in research regarding this right now. One is busy pulling together material for a book, I think, and the other is still in the lab. The results will be interesting, at the very least.