Former colleagues of Sir Ian Wilmut, the scientist widely credited as the creator of Dolly the cloned sheep, have called for the Queen to revoke his knighthood, describing the honour as an insult.
In a petition to Buckingham Palace, four former employees of the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, allege that Sir Ian is a “self-confessed charlatan” who “apparently lacks adequate scientific understanding”. The petition urges the Queen to “withhold, recall or reduce the Royal Assent from the knighthood of Professor Ian Wilmut”.
A letter adds: “We do feel very bitter that not only has our own work not been fully recognised but we appear to have been used . . . Wilmut’s knighthood is seen as the crowning insult to honest endeavour.”
Sir Ian, 63, who won global acclaim after being credited in 1996 with creating Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, was knighted in the New Year Honours for services to science. His former colleagues claim that their objections to the knighthood are shared by numerous others. They add: “Roslin, the University of Edinburgh and Scotland are all tarnished with this grant. We beg reconsideration.”
The petition is signed by Prim Singh, a molecular biologist with a history of conflict with Sir Ian; Jeremy Brown, a former research scientist at Roslin; Pauline Ward, a former bio-informatician at the institute; and Douglas Currie, managing director of Roslin Nutrition, a private research company.
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At an employment tribunal in 2006, Dr Singh claimed that he had been racially discriminated against by Professor Wilmut because he was Asian. Although he lost that claim, the tribunal found that he had been unfairly dismissed as head of nuclear programming at Roslin. All his allegations against Sir Ian personally were dismissed and are the subject of an appeal. During the hearing, Professor Wilmut was asked whether the statement “I did not create Dolly” was accurate; he said it was. He said he had appeared as lead author on the paper because of an arrangment with his colleague Keith Campbell, whom he said deserved “66 per cent” of the credit.
Dr Singh told Times Higher Education yesterday: “He has admitted he isn’t the brains behind Dolly, and to then go on and award him a knighthood reflects very badly on Scottish science.”
Sir Ian, who is now director of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, said yesterday: “I am aware of the terms of the correspondence . . . I am aware also that the Queen’s Private Secretary has indicated that this is a matter in which her Majesty would not intervene.” In a letter to Dr Singh, the Queen’s Private Secretary said that recommendations for honours were the Prime Minister’s responsibility and the petition had been referred to the Cabinet Office.