Author: Ian Wilmut, Roger Highfield
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Year Published: 2006
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On July 5, 1996, Dolly, the first animal ever to have been cloned from an adult cell, was born under the watchful eyes of Ian Wilmut and his team of researchers at the Roslin Institute. Dolly's birth sparked all sorts of political and ethical concerns while providing hope that cloning might one day cure major illnesses like Parkinson's and diabetes. In After Dolly, Wilmut has teamed with award winning science journalist Roger Highfield to defend cloning and argue for continued scientific research.

Dolly's birth was a big deal because it was the first time any researcher was able to reverse cellular time. Before Dolly, researchers believed that development could only run in one direction - that all cells were derived from that one cell that came into being when the egg was fertilized. To create Dolly, Wilmut took a nucleus from a 6 year old sheep cell, transplanted it into an egg cell from a second sheep, and inserted it into the uterus of a third sheep where Dolly started developing and growing. All of this happened without the act of sex, a feat deemed "impossible" at the time.

Dolly went on to prove that a clone was not sterile. Throughout her life, she gave birth to six lambs, all conceived naturally and born healthy. She became a media superstar, featured in books, plays, and tv shows. And she sparked the desire among scientists to be the first to clone a human being.

Five years into her life, Dolly developed a limp and was diagnosed with arthritis in her knee. She was successfully treated, but her condition sparked new worries about the safety of cloning and side effects such as premature aging. Dolly lived a normal life for a sheep but died in February 2003, not as the result of premature aging like much of the media reported, but as the result from pulmonary adenomatosis, a common lung disease that affects adult sheep and took out four of Dolly's fellow barn-mates before they could stop it from spreading.

Genetics has always been a sticky subject when it comes to artificially aiding in human reproduction. Media coverage was mixed when Italian gynecologist, Severino Antinori, used donor eggs and in vitro fertilization to impregnate a 62-year-old woman in 1994. And many people have misconceptions about how the process works. For instance, if human cloning was possible, the clone would not be a carbon copy of the original. It would have its own personality in the same way that identical twins - which are examples of natural clones - have different personalities yet come from the same egg. There's also no way to duplicate exactly the environment in which the original was raised. The clone would have its own friends and teachers and interact with a different set of political, social, and cultural norms.

Wilmut has a strong underlying ethics and the book carefully explains that he believes cloning humans is unethical and inhumane. On the other hand, he is a strong proponent of human stem cell research and deriving cells from cloned human embryos to study and treat disease.

One day doctors will be able to use cloning to grow a patient's own cells and tissues to carry out repairs. Cells from these embryos will also speed the search for the next generation of blockbuster medicines and help reduce our dependence on animal research. As a bonus, this work will give profound insights into human development and how it can go wrong and into how to correct many terrible genetic diseases in the embryo.

The potential of cloning to alleviate suffering - even end it for some diseases - is so great in the medium term that I believe it would be immoral not to clone human embryos for treatments. In the long term, a vast range of alternative and embryo-free ways to grow cells and tissues, perhaps even organs, may also rest on the foundations of this research.

The book is a mixture between science and personal experience. Wilmut constructs his case for why stem cell research is necessary while providing insight into why he feels so strongly about this cause. Much of the book is a first hand case study of the Dolly phenomenon, the clones that came after her, and his work with stem cells. Wilmut takes care in explaining the biology behind the experiment in terms that laymen without a genetics background can understand. He even addresses the hype surrounding the Woo-Suk Hwang scandal in South Korea and its effects on stem cell research.

Finally, Wilmut doesn�t shy away from the question of when does life begin. Throughout his career, he has come up against staunch opposition who believe that life begins when the egg is fertilized and any attempts to experiment on a few day old embryo is equivalent to taking the life of a full human being. Wilmut approaches the subject with respect for the underlying religious and moral philosophy while clearly explaining his position on the subject - that he does not believe that a blastocyst is a person because it does not possess consciousness.

When the first in vitro fertilization baby was born in 1978, society threw the same types of arguments at scientists - they were taking "the first step down a 'slippery slope' leading to eugenics, deformed babies and doctors playing God." Similarly, there was such debate when individuals were declared dead due to brain death and their organs were used as transplants. And there were even objections when anesthesia was introduced during childbirth - the men in power had argued that women were intended to suffer as God's punishment. Wilmut sees stem cell research as the next scientific advancement that people fear, and therefore oppose, because it's new. Yes, there may be unintended negative consequences, but the benefits to society are far greater.

Overall, this is a great book for those interested in the Dolly phenomenon and the stem cell research debate. The book is laid out in nine chapters. It includes an overview of cloning, the creation of Dolly, discussions about embryology and when life begins, and the morality of designer babies and human cloning. It also includes an extensive source notes section and a glossary.