Clone : The Road to Dolly, and the Path Ahead

In February 1997 a group of Scottish livestock scientists announced that they had cloned a lamb using a cell from an adult sheep. "When the time comes to write the history of our age, this quiet birth, the creation of this little lamb, will stand out," says award-winning science writer Gina Kolata. In Clone, she gives a clear account of the technical background to Dolly's birth, but what makes the book really shine is her coverage of the history and social conflicts of cloning. She weaves stories of fraud, scandal, irreproducible results, and pig-headed determination into a solid framework of philosophy, science, and ethics.

The birth of Dolly - the world's first clone - literally placed in our hands the secret of creation. Few discoveries have so challenged our sense of identity or presented such a complex knot of pressing ethical, spiritual, and scientific dilemmas. Science journalist Gina Kolata, the first reporter to speak with Dr. Ian Wilmut, the embryologist who cloned Dolly, has had unprecedented access to key scientists, ethicists, and experts at the center of the event. In this book, she reveals the story behind Dolly - reaching back to our earliest attempts to clone, uncovering the startling, largely unreported events that led to Dolly's birth, and exploring the mind-boggling questions that Dolly presents for our future.