Thirty years after Dolly, cloning is helping save species, not summon a sci-fi future

Thirty years after Dolly, cloning is helping save species, not summon a sci-fi future

When Dolly the sheep was born, she sparked years of imagination about what cloning might someday do — from duplicating pets and even people to reviving vanished animals like mammoths. Three decades on, the story looks much less like a sci-fi prophecy. Cloning's real impact has been in more targeted scientific work tied to medicine, farming, and wildlife protection. What's happening? Thirty years after Dolly became the first cloned mammal, the sc…

Thirty years after Dolly, cloning is not what we expected

Thirty years after Dolly the sheep, cloning has not delivered armies of identical animals or resurrected mammoths – but it has transformed disease research, conservation and our understanding of cells.