Research News

Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, the “Father of Cloning”, gives a lecture at SYSU International Masters Frontier Forum

Source: Office of International Cooperation & Exchange
Written by: Office of International Cooperation & Exchange
Proofread by: Jia Xiaodan
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On September 20, 2018, the SYSU International Masters Frontier Forum, co-organized by the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Shenzhen) and the Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU), was held on Guangzhou South Campus. Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, the “Father of Cloning”, was invited to give a lecture. Professor Xiao Haipeng, Vice President of SYSU, attended the forum, which was hosted by Professor Deng Wenbin, Dean of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Shenzhen). About 300 faculty members and students attended the lecture.

SYSU International Masters Frontier Forum: From Dolly to Personalised Medicine
 
Vice President Xiao Haipeng delivered a welcome speech before the lecture. He introduced that the intention of holding the SYSU International Masters Frontier Forum was from the spirit of “dare to be a pioneer” by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. He expressed the hope that Professor Sir lan Wilmut would cooperate with SYSU to build a stem cell translational platform and support the "Double First Class" construction at SYSU.

Afterwards, Professor Sir Ian Wilmut gave a lecture entitled “From Dolly to Personalised Medicine”. He told the story of creating Dolly and introduced the leap-forward development of stem cell technology. He believed that stem cell technology is helpful to the treatment of diseases including malignant tumors, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and various tissue and organ damage. It will promote medicine into a new era to rebuild, regenerate, "manufacture" and replace tissues and organs, and bring new hope to most medical problems faced by mankind. In the Q&A session, Professor Sir Ian Wilmut won a burst of applause by answering students' and teachers' questions.

Sir Ian Wilmut, a British, is the inventor of cloning and has been praised as the “Father of Cloning”. He got the doctor’s degree from Cambridge University. Now he is a professor of Emeritus of MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh. He received many honors, such as OBE, Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999, Knighthood New Year Honours in 2008, Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999, Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000, Foreign Associate of the National Academies of Science USA in 2004, and Shaw Prize in 2008.