Dolly the cloned sheep was not old before her time

PARIS: When Dolly the sheep was put down before her seventh birthday in 2003, she was said to suffer from age-related osteoarthritis, raising red flags that clones may grow old faster.
But scientists said Thursday that the fear of premature, clone-related ageing appears to have been misplaced. Dolly’s joint disease was, in fact, quite normal. Researchers in Scotland and England based their conclusion on X-rays of Dolly’s skeleton, held by National Museums Scotland (NMS), in Edinburgh. Dolly was lame in one knee.
But the extent of osteoarthritis (OA) revealed by the scans was “not unusual” for a seven-to-nine-year-old, naturally-conceived sheep. “The original concerns that cloning had caused early-onset OA in Dolly were unfounded,” the researchers concluded, adding that their research was driven by a desire “to set the record straight”. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. Dolly was put down at the age of six years and eight months due to a progressive lung disease. Dolly’s breed of Finn-Dorset sheep normally live to about 10-12 years.