John Clark (1951-2004)

Professor (Anthony) John Clark MA MSc PhD OBE FRSE (m. 1973) was an British geneticist famous for his contribution to the genetic modification of livestock and regenerative medicine and was Director of the Roslin Institute from 2002-2004.

He was born on 18 September 1951 in Blackpool. His family moved to Lincolnshire and he was educated at Barton Grammar School, before coming up to Christ’s College in 1973 to read Natural Sciences. After Christ’s he gained an MSc for studies on the regulation of development in a mudsnail from University of Western Ontario and in 1977 he moved to Edinburgh where he took his doctorate. From there he joined John Bishop’s team at the Institute of Genetics, at Edinburgh University, where he carried out research into the genes in the liver of mice. In 1985 he was appointed to the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (subsequently the Roslin Institute) where he began work in genetic modification to produce a sheep giving milk with human proteins. He was successful within five years.  Clark's work set the stage for Ian Wilmut's team at Roslin to clone a sheep, Dolly (1996), the result of transplanted DNA of an adult sheep to an unfertilised egg cell.

Clark was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1999.

He died aged 52 on 12 August 2004.