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Ian Wilmut

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Scientist

The Resume

    (July 7, 1944-September 10, 2023)
    Born in Hampton Lucy, England, United Kingdom
    Embryologist
    Headed the research group that cloned the first mammal from a single adult cell, Dolly
    Co-wrote 'After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning' (2006)
    Knighted for services to science (2008)

Why he might be annoying:

    He originally wanted to join the Navy, but was unable to do so because of color blindness.
    His doctoral thesis was 'The Preservation of Boar Semen.'
    He lost out to Andy Grove for Time's Person of the Year (1997).
    He announced he was abandoning the technique used to clone Dolly in favor of one developed by Shinya Yamanaka (2008).
    A colleague, Dr. Prim Singh, accused him of stealing his ideas and of bullying him because of his ethnicity.

Why he might not be annoying:

    An employment tribunal rejected Dr. Singh's claims of racist treatment (2006).
    Speculation that Dolly's death at an early age was a result of premature aging caused by cloning was eventually disproven.
    He opposes human cloning for both ethical and scientific reasons.
    He noted, 'History shows that people are very bad at predicting the way that technology will be used.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 60 Votes: 45.00% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 7 Votes: 14.29% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 72.73% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying