Ian Wilmut: Charlatan not Genius

By Dr P Singh – his article entitled:

Ian Wilmut: Charlatan not Genius

In an impressive article in "Scotland on Sunday" (3 February 2008) we were made privy to a meeting between the then newly-appointed Director of the Roslin Institute, Grahame Bulfield, and Ian Wilmut. We are told that it took place on 7 December 1988, over a cup of tea. It was not documented if it was morning or afternoon tea. At this meeting we were told that Wilmut said to Bulfield that he, Wilmut, "believed it would be possible....to develop "nuclear transfer" in sheep. In other words create clones." Before this meeting passes into folklore, like the apocryphal apple hitting Newton on the head, it may be worthwhile refreshing the memories of Wilmut and Bulfield.

1. In 1986, two years before Wilmut`s "eureka" moment, Dr. S.M. Willadsen published the first study on nuclear transplantation/transfer in sheep. Please see S.M. Willasden, "Nuclear transplantation in sheep". It was published in Nature (volume 320, pages 63-65, March 1986) the same journal that published "Dolly".

2. Willasden worked at the Institute where Wilmut did his PhD so Wilmut was fully aware that Willasden had developed nuclear transfer in sheep. This is consistent with the "Scotland on Sunday" article which confirms that Wilmut "had not developed the Dolly technology".

3. In 1989, after years of nuclear transfer studies Willasden published a review of his work entitled: "Cloning of sheep and cow embryos" in Genome (volume 31, pages 956-962, 1989). Willasden had cloned sheep from embryonic cells. An important for runner to the "Dolly experiment". Again, Wilmut was aware of this work.

4. Rather than a becoming a man who "passionately backed the work" Wilmut appears to have been galvanised into a state of frenzied somnolence after his meeting with Bulfield. Plodding along after Willasden he published a 1989 paper on nuclear transplantation in sheep (see Smith and Wilmut, Biology of Reproduction, volume 40, pages 1027-1035, 1989).

Thereafter sheep nuclear transfer took a "back-seat" until the arrival of Keith Campbell who was, according to Peter Sharp recruited by Sharp (Wilmut`s line manager), to "shore-up" Wilmut`s flagging career.

5. Campbell had the idea of "quiescence" which underpinned the "Dolly" experiment. Wilmut was not the brains.

6. A person who could confirm or deny the "Eureka" mindset of Wilmut is Ms Anthea Springbett, who published with Wilmut at that time. See Wilmut, Ashworth, Springbett and Sales, J. Reproduction and Fertility, volume, 83, pages 233-237, 1988.

Ms. Springbett has been extra-judicially "gagged" by Roslin Institute using "hush-money". See Springbett.pdf.

Further to the piece on Scotland on Sunday, Bulfield goes on to defend the honour of Sir Ian Wilmut in the THES. He says: Wilmut: "raised funding for the research, recruited, trained and led the team. Yet in the e-mail from Harry Griffin (who became interim Director after Bulfield left) to Prim Singh on 28 May 2002, which is given on the Web site dedicated to the petition, we see that the expertise for cloning had gone but Wilmut was still at the Institute!

Regarding Bulfield`s assertion that he approved the authorship on the cloning papers, this is strongly contested by Lawrence Davies (see point 5.105 on page 79 of his further submissions), where Bulfied is, put bluntly, called a liar. Indeed, in written evidence from Wilmut it is clear he, Wilmut, determined authorship. Please see answer 26 of Wilmut`s RR65 replies and paragraph 5.71 of Lawrence Davies` further submissions at page 70.

The issue Bulfiled raises about the petitioners is a red herring, designed to obfuscate and confuse. Except for details of financial wrong-doing, to be described, it is all in the public domain already.

The evidence is that Wilmut leads by following from the front. He simply marshals people in the direction in which they are already going. His modus operandi is to shout loudly, which Bulfield has put down to "high levels of testosterone", which is patently scientific nonsense (see Court hears of "grumpy old man syndrome" . His now famous abandonment of cloning - something he did not do - to jumping on the "bandwagon" of induced pluripotent stem cells, discovered in Japan, is just another manifestation of his leadership qualities. When you see a "bandwagon" the race is over. Someone else has won the race.

Further details regarding Grahame Bulfield can be found at in the section below headed: "Three points that illustrate Bulfield's hypocrisy".

P.S. Regarding the http://bitesizebio.com/2008/02/05/defending-a-giant/ by Nick, he/she should be reminded to stick to the facts, which show that Wilmut"s scientific contribution (see points above) to cloning work has been as a follower not as the "brains".

Below is the reply by Dr Jeremy Brown to THE.

Subject: Bulfield's letter to THE

Dear Zoe Corbyn and David Lister,

In reply to Bulfield's letter which is attached.

Bulfield should read, and inwardly, digest the rules for publication in biomedical journals, which can be found at:http://www.icmje.org  From section:

II.A Authorship and Contributor ship

II.A.1. Byline Authors

First quotation.

"Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3."

Please see also:

Second quotation.

"Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship."

Wilmut's role fits the second quotation above, not the first quotation above.

The fact of the matter is that, in court, Wilmut admitted that he played a "non-trivial supervisory role", and further said that he was not the creator of Dolly the sheep, and that he was not responsible for the scientific breakthrough that led to Dolly the sheep. Bulfield did not contradict Wilmut at this time while under oath.

What Bulfield writes about the people who signed the petition is an irrelevance and a smokescreen to cover up breaking the rules.

Bulfield himself writes that: "Sir Ian raised the funding for this research and recruited, trained and led the team". These functions do not fit the qualifications necessary for authorship. The rules are quite specific on these points. Bulfield's finding of a letter with outlined plans also not fit the qualifications for authorship.

As part of a racial discrimination trial against the institute led by Bulfield, and the larger organisation of which it is part, the BBSRC, it was asked who had the idea that made cloning possible. The organisation refused to answer at that time.

Bulfield needs to explain why he gave permission to break the rules for publication, and his own financial involvement in the scheme. He is supposed to follow the rules.

Yours sincerely,

J.P. Brown