Dolly the Sheep (first cloned mammal)

Dolly the Sheep was the first mammal successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell, achieved in 1996 by scientists at the University of Edinburgh. Through a process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, they took the nucleus (containing genetic material) from a mature sheep’s udder cell and inserted it into an egg cell whose nucleus was removed. This egg was then stimulated to develop into an embryo, which was implanted into a surrogate mother. Dolly's birth demonstrated that specialized adult cells can be reprogrammed to create an exact genetic copy of the original organism, advancing research in genetics, regenerative medicine, and cloning technology.