Ian Wilmut - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Wilmut was born in Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, England. Wilmut's father, Leonard Wilmut, was a mathematics teacher who suffered from diabetes for fifty years eventually causing blindness. He was a student of the former Boys' High School, in Scarborough, where his father taught. Wilmut's early desire was to embark on a naval career, but he was unable to do so due to his colour blindness. As a school boy, Wilmut worked as a farm hand on weekends, which inspired him to study Agriculture at the University of Nottingham.

In 1966 Wilmut spent 8 weeks working in the laboratory of Christopher Polge, who is credited with developing the technique of cryopreservation in 1949. The following year, Wilmut joined Polge's laboratory to undertake a research Doctor of Philosophy, from which he graduated in 1971. Wilmut has since been involved in research focusing on gametes and embryogenesis including working at the Roslin Institute. In 1998 he received the Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award.

Wilmut was the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal, a lamb named Dolly. Dolly died of a respiratory disease in 2003. However, in 2008 Wilmut announced that he is to abandon the technique of somatic cell nuclear transfer by which Dolly was created in favour of an alternative technique developed by Shinya Yamanaka. This method has been used in mice to derive pluripotent stem cells from differentiated adult skin cells, thus circumventing the need to generate embryonic stem cells. Wilmut believes that this method holds greater potential for the treatment of degenerative conditions such as Parkinson's disease and to treat stroke and heart attack patients.

"Dolly was a bonus, sometimes when scientists work hard, they also get lucky, and that's what happened."

Wilmut has been accused of accepting disproportionate credit for his contribution to the development of Dolly. Former employees of the Roslin Institute claim that Wilmut is “self-confessed charlatan” who “apparently lacks adequate scientific understanding”. These employees, who were not directly involved in the creation of Dolly, have signed a petition for the Queen to withdraw Wilmut's knighthood. Indeed, Wilmut admits to having played only a supervisory role in the creation of Dolly, crediting his colleague Keith Campbell with "66 per cent" of the work. This supervisory role however is consistent with the post of principal investigator held by Wilmut at the time of Dolly's creation.

Wilmut currently holds the post of Chair of Reproductive Biology at the Medical Research Council Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Edinburgh and in 2008 was knighted in the New Year Honours for "services to science".