Cloned Sheep Bears A Healthy Daughter -- Bonnie's Birth Proves Dolly Can Reproduce; Scientists Delighted

EDINBURGH, Scotland - Dolly had a little lamb - the old fashioned way.

The cloned sheep gave birth to a healthy female named Bonnie on April 13 in a normal delivery, the Roslin Institute, where Dolly was cloned, announced today.

It said both she and the little lamb were in good health.

"We are delighted," said Graham Bulfield, the institute's director. "Despite Dolly's unusual origins, the birth of her lamb confirms that she is able to breed normally and produce healthy offspring."

In a history-making announcement in February last year, the institute said it had cloned Dolly from the cell of another sheep's udder.

Dolly, a Finn Dorset sheep, was born at the institute on July 5, 1996, but it was seven months before the institute announced the news.

Dolly was mated naturally with a Welsh mountain ram and was kept in partial quarantine since becoming pregnant for fear of a miscarriage, the institute said.

The institute was keen for Dolly to give birth to prove she is a fully healthy, fertile sheep. A healthy lamb would also help counter fears that Dolly may be prone to premature aging and other age-related disorders as a result of being cloned from the udder cell of a 6-year-old adult.

She was named after Dolly Parton, the curvaceous country-and-Western singer.

The institute already has proved that cloned animals can reproduce: Megan and Morag, sheep conceived through a different cloning process, have lambs of their own.

A U.S. company, Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts, announced in January that it had cloned three calves using the Dolly technique. Also, ABS Global of Wisconsin announced in August that it cloned a calf using a significantly different method.

The institute said Dolly is the first mammal to have been cloned from a cell taken from an adult, and her creation ignited calls from around the world for more regulation of scientists using cloning techniques.

The Roslin Institute and PPL Therapeutics, the Scottish biotechnology company formed to market the center's work, have vowed never to try cloning a human.