LONDON British scientist Ian Wilmut, whose research was central to the creation of the famous cloned animal, Dolly the Sheep, has died at 79, the Roslin Institute of Edinburgh said on Monday.

Wilmut, along with Keith Campbell from the animal sciences research institute in Scotland, generated news headlines and heated ethical debates in 1996 when they created Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell.

(Reporting by Muvija M; editing by Michael Holden)