Ian Wilmut’s old cloning team is furious, apparently, that he is receiving a knighthood for his “service to science.” Their point is that Wilmut did not actually clone Dolly or do anything other than administer the lab in which the groundbreaking cloning experiment took place. From the story:
The admission by Sir Ian Wilmut in 2006 that he did not personally create Dolly the sheep set tongues wagging across the world of science. His name had been synonymous with the breakthrough that led to the first clone from an adult mammal, but he made clear that his role was a supervisory one.
So when Sir Ian was knighted at New Year for “services to science”, controversy was to be expected.
The latest rumblings have come in the form of a petition to the Queen requesting that his knighthood be revoked. It is signed by four former employees of the Roslin Institute, where Dolly was created in 1997. “Wilmut’s knighthood is seen as the crowning insult to honest endeavour,” they write, adding that their sentiment is shared by others who signed severance deals with Roslin. “Roslin, the University of Edinburgh and Scotland are all tarnished with this grant. We beg
reconsideration.”
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