Ian Wilmut was born on July 7, 1944, in Hampton Lucey, England in Warwick. He attended the University of Nottingham, where he became fascinated with embryology after meeting G. Eric Lamming, a world-renowned expert in reproduction. The meeting became a turning point for Wilmut, who set out on a singular quest--to understand the genetic engineering of animals. He graduated from Nottingham in 1967, with a degree in agricultural science.

Wilmut continued his studies at Darwin College at Cambridge University in England. There he received his doctoral degree in 1973, awarded after he completed his thesis on the techniques for freezing boar semen. He immediately took a position at the Animal Breeding Research Station, an animal research institute supported by government and private funds. The research station eventually became the Roslin Institute. It is headquartered in Roslin, near Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1973, after receiving his doctorate, Wilmut produced the first calf ("Frosty") born from...