Science Schools in Canada

Everyone knows the hype that centred on Dolly, the world's first cloned sheep. But there is a huge team of scientists and technologists behind the scenes that made Dolly possible. Campus Starter sat down with Dr. Ron James, now retired former Managing Director of PPL Therapeutics (the company that cloned Dolly), to talk about how students can get started in the fascinating field of biotechnology—and of course to ask how Dolly is doing these days.

Campus Starter: Tell us a little bit about your background Dr. James. How did you get involved in cloning Dolly?
Dr. James: I've got a broad background in chemistry, research, patents, licensing, finance, and accounting. Knowing a bit of everything gave me a shot at running PPL Therapeutics and eventually working on the cloning project.

CS: What did you take in University?
DJ: After I finished high school, I worked for a big pharmaceutical company as an Organic Chemistry Lab Technician while I did my Chemistry degree part-time in the evenings. I was making compounds that we tested for drug activity. Then I did a PhD in Chemistry full-time, studying how morphine is made by poppies—kind of early biotechnology.

CS: What about after school?
DJ: After my PhD I went into industry. I worked for Wilkinson Sword (the Schick razor blade people) developing all kinds of things including razor coatings, fireworks, distress flares, and swords. I started as a lab assistant and after 14 years, ended up running the chemistry department for Research and Development
I then started licensing and selling the technology the company developed before moving into the venture capital scene with an investment company. I invested money mostly in life science companies and that's how I found PPL and joined as its Managing Director. On the way through all of that I also did a qualification in Accounting and Finance, which turned out to be useful.

CS: Why did you guys clone Dolly?
DJ: The idea is to make proteins that have a therapeutic value in humans (like a protein that works against Cystic Fibrosis and genetic emphysema) produced in the milk of genetically modified sheep.
What Dolly was all about was a route towards making much better and more precise genetically modified animals. Now Dolly is not genetically modified, she is just a sheep made from a cell. The idea behind Dolly was that if we could make an animal from a cell, we could do clever and precise genetic engineering in cells, millions and millions of cells, and when we're done make an animal. So Dolly was a stepping stone proving we could make an animal from a cell. Then we could focus on making a genetically modified animal from a genetically modified cell. And we did that.

CS: So where is Dolly now?
DJ: She is as it were "retired" at the institute we work with. They built a special barn for her and some of the other scientifically famous sheep. She likes visitors—she expects to get fed and expects to have her photograph taken. She gets really cheeky