BOISE, Idaho — Gordon Woods, a veterinary scientist who helped create Idaho Gem, the world’s first cloned mule, has died. He was 57.
Woods passed away unexpectedly Thursday, said Dell Rae Moellenberg, a spokeswoman at Colorado State University, where Woods had been a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
In 2003, Woods, Dirk Vanderwall and Ken White of Utah State University led a team that cloned Idaho Gem as part of a larger project intended to better understand human diseases.
The mule clone, one of three produced at the university, went on to success on the mule-racing circuit in Nevada and California.
According to a biography from the University of Idaho, Woods grew up in Idaho and graduated from the University of Idaho. He received his doctor of veterinary medicine degree at Colorado State and another doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin.
In 1986, he returned to Idaho and founded the Northwest Equine Reproduction Laboratory, then joined the University of Idaho in 1988 as a professor. He left the school in 2007 to work at Colorado State.
