Situated in the foothills of the Scottish Pentlands, five miles south of Edinburgh—where the low, rolling terrain gives way on higher ground to picturesque heaths and grazing lands for flocks of docile sheep—are the balance of the team's laboratories as well as the sophisticated animal facilities prerequisite to their research. At this facility, the lab where the team's molecular biology specialists are microinjecting genetic material into the eggs of sheep is only yards away from the facility where other team members, skilled in surgery and animal husbandry, are implanting the genetically manipulated eggs into the sheep.
Until recently, most agricultural researchers were applied scientists who worked primarily on an organismal level; but members of the University of Edinburgh's Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) team are comfortable working on a molecular level: They see themselves as basic scientists.
And most important, when the Edinburgh group sits down to consider the ...
