Frostie, a Hereford-Friesian calf, the first calf produced from an embryo that was frozen, thawed, and implanted into a surrogate cow. Frostie, born in 1973 and popularly called the “frozen calf,” was the product of cryopreservation research conducted by British developmental biologist Ian Wilmut.
The successful birth of Frostie accelerated the development of commercial in vitro fertilization and embryo-transfer techniques for the production of livestock, particularly cattle and sheep. The freezing, thawing, and implantation techniques used to generate Frostie also led to improvements in methods used to freeze and thaw human embryos.