DOLLY is firmly lodged in the public consciousness. A survey of 1018 Britons
has revealed that more than half had heard of her. Of those, 65 per cent knew
she was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.
The survey, commissioned by the communications consultancy HCC.De Facto and
presented this week at a biotechnology symposium in Edinburgh, also shows that
Dolly has stolen the limelight from her creators. Only 2 per cent of the 535
respondents who had heard of Dolly knew she was cloned at the Roslin Institute
near Edinburgh. And despite the Roslin researchers鈥� assurances that they don鈥檛
want their technology applied to people, 49 per cent of the respondents familiar
with Dolly believed she was made to advance human cloning.
Dolly鈥檚 high public profile has also forced the Roslin Institute into
applying to trademark her name and image, after a row with the electrical goods
manufacturer Zanussi over an advertisement. In a play on Zanussi鈥檚 slogan 鈥淭he
Appliance of Science鈥�, billboards showed a sheep called Dolly under the line:
鈥淭he Misappliance of Science鈥�. After Roslin objected, the adverts were
withdrawn.
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