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Dolly the Sheep

Dolly (July 5, 1996 - February 14, 2003), a ewe, was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell. She was cloned at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland, and lived there until her death when she was six years old. Her birth was announced on February 22, 1997.

The sheep was originally code-named "6LL3". The name "Dolly" came from a suggestion by the stockmen who helped with her birth, in honor of Dolly Parton, because it was a mammary cell that was cloned. The technique that was made famous by her birth is somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which a cell is placed in a de-nucleated ovum, the two cells fuse and then develop into an embryo. When Dolly was cloned in 1996 from a cell taken from a six-year-old ewe, she became the center of much controversy that still exists today.

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