Katie Hammond (Year 10) on the blue plaque in Edinburgh honouring Dolly the Sheep’s contribution to science

Dolly the sheep, who was the first animal to be cloned, is going to get a blue plaque in Edinburgh for her contribution to Science, it has recently been announced. Blue plaques are given to important historical figures in the places they lived and worked.

It will read ‘DOLLY THE SHEEP | 1996-2003 | FIRST MAMMAL TO BE CLONED FROM AN ADULT CELL’. It has been organised by the Society of Biology and will be put up on Wednesday the 25th February at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh to celebrate the hero of biology.

Surpisingly, she is not the first animal to receive a blue plaque. Nipper the dog has one in Bristol, for his place in musical history at HMV.

Sir Ian Wilmut, the main researcher on the project will be making a short speech.

Dolly was cloned to keep a certain gene that produced medicines for humans for cystic fibrosis, blood clotting problems. Because the process was expensive and difficult it was easier for the sheep to be cloned rather than repeat the process.

She died in 2003 from a lung disease, but before this she gave birth to six lambs, as the researchers wanted her to have as normal a life as possible, and to prove that cloned animals could reproduce as normally as another animal.