Wilmut

Wilmut is a surname with British origins. It is most notably associated with Ian Wilmut, a British embryologist and molecular biologist who led the team at the Roslin Institute in Scotland that produced Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell. The Dolly project, conducted in the 1990s, demonstrated the feasibility of somatic cell nuclear transfer and represented a major milestone in developmental biology. Dolly was born in 1996, and the team’s results were published in 1997 in the journal Nature, drawing widespread attention and prompting discussion about the scientific, medical, and ethical implications of cloning.

Beyond Ian Wilmut, the surname is relatively uncommon, and there are few other individuals with the name who have achieved similar public recognition in major reference works. As a result, Wilmut is primarily known within the context of Dolly’s cloning and the associated advancements in cloning, stem cell research, and biotechnology. The name appears mainly in British and international scientific literature related to cloning research from the late 20th and early 21st centuries.