Dolly at Roslin: A collective memory event

Born on 5 July 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first animal to be cloned from an adult cell, and became the most iconic member of her species. As part of the BBSRC-funded ‘Historicising Dolly’ project at the University of Edinburgh, we sought to conduct a group memory event that would gather different members of Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics who were either involved in the cloning or observed it as colleagues. Our purpose was twofold. First, we sought to place Dolly within the broader genetic engineering research programme at Roslin, alongside other cloned and transgenic sheep made there, and in the historical context of 1990s biotechnology and science funding. Second, through a collective memory event, we hoped to gather diverse perspectives and allow the participants to reflect on the established accounts of Dolly. The event took place on 19 April 2016, in the picturesque Elder Room, Old College, University of Edinburgh. The four-hour conversation was recorded, transcribed and revised by the participants. We then added light editing for style and clarity, trying to maintain the conversational nature of the event while making it easy to follow as written prose. The opinions of the speakers are their own.