Cloning Biologist Dies

Flickr, A Roger DaviesPart of the team that cloned the first mammal from adult cells in 1996, Keith Campbell from the University of Nottingham, died last week (October 5) at the age of 58. The university confirmed the reports, but did not specify a cause of death.

In 1991 Campbell started working on cloning experiments at the Roslin Institute in Scotland that led to the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1996. “It was known that the majority of cells within an adult contain an intact genome; however, many scientists were skeptical that the nuclei of such cells could be reprogrammed to control development,” Campbell wrote in an essay when he received the Shaw prize in medicine and life sciences in 2008. “Stubbornly, I always believed that such technology was possible.”

Campbell went on to successfully clone several other animals, including pigs and lambs, and in 1999, he joined...