TEDxSalford

From Dolly to Curing Human Disease

The first of the eagerly anticipated videos from October’s TEDxSalford event has now been uploaded. Watch this space as more videos will be coming through thick and fast!

I remember the first time I learnt about ‘Dolly the Sheep’ during a science lesson in year eight. At that time, I didn’t really understand the complex biology that led to her creation, let alone the transformative effect the ability to clone mammals would have on medical science. The complex biology behind Dolly may still elude me  (albeit Sir Ian’s talk has definitely made  things clearer!) – however, I have now come to appreciate how critical Dolly’s creation has been for the advancement of regenerative medicine. As you may have gathered by reading my earlier entries, ‘Walking Again’ & ‘The Audacity of Hope’ – I’m quite passionate about the subject because of my first hand experience of seeing the devastating effects of degenerative diseases amongst family and friends. As Sir Ian said towards the end of his talk:

“This new technology has the potential to transform our old age”

Rather than focusing on the above, the press coverage in the aftermath of Dolly’s ‘creation’ centred around how quickly scientists would be able to clone humans. I remember later on in my secondary school career having to debate the ethics of human cloning – a very valid debate, however, retrospectively it does seem that the expectation that a cloned person would quickly follow Dolly was a case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’!

Irrespective of which side you’re on in the cloning debate, watching Sir Ian Wilmut’s talk will definitely make you wiser!

Sir Ian Wilmut is a professor at the  MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for leading a team of scientists responsible for successfully cloning a sheep named Dolly. At present his research interests include finding innovative ways to use stem cells to help sufferers of degenerative diseases such as Motor Neurone disease, Parkinson’s and certain cardiovascular diseases.