The Roslin Institute was established in 1993 in the village of Roslin, Scotland, as an independent research center by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and as of 2014 is part of the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland. Researchers at the Roslin Institute cloned the Dolly the sheep in 1996. According to the Roslin Institute, Dolly was the first mammal to develop into an adult from the transfer of the nucleus of an adult sheep cell into an ovum with the nucleus removed. The Roslin Institute performs genetic and medical based animal studies to help investigate human physiology and medicine and to improve agricultural research. The Roslin Institute studies embryology, cloning, hormones, and genetic alterations in animals and techniques such as Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT).

John Chassar Moir lived in Scotland during the twentieth century and helped develop techniques to improve the health of pregnant women. Moir helped to discover compounds that doctors could administer to women after childbirth to prevent life-threatening blood loss. Those compounds included the ergot alkaloid called ergometrine, also called ergonovine, and d-lysergic acid beta-propanolamide. Moir tested ergometrine in postpartum patients and documented that it helped prevent or manage postpartum hemorrhage in women. Moir also developed methods to treat tears between the bladder and the vagina, called vesico-vaginal fistulas, that occur due to complications of childbirth, and that cause urinary incontinence in women who have them.

Margaret Ann Bulkley, under the male pseudonym James Barry, was one of the first female obstetricians in early nineteenth century British Empire. She was the first person to perform a cesarean section in South Africa. Cesarean section is a procedure in which a doctor cuts into the uterus of a pregnant woman to retrieve the fetus during complicated births. Bulkley hid her gender and lived life as the male Barry to practice medicine, an opportunity not allowed to women at the time. Barry's position as a Medical Inspector with the British Army enabled her to travel the world as a physician and to practice surgical techniques including the removal of fetuses during complicated births.

Ephraim McDowell was an US abdominal surgeon who in 1809 performed one of the first successful ovarian surgeries. McDowell conducted his medical practice in Danville, Kentucky, where he used novel methods of ovariotomy to remove a twenty-two and a half pound ovarian tumor from his patient, Jane Crawford. At the time, surgeons performed ovariotomies by making an incision into each patient’s ovary to remove a mass. However, their patients often died from infection or blood loss. McDowell’s methods included making an incision into the abdominal muscles, draining the abdomen of blood, and using adhesives with sutures to close the wound. McDowell performed one of the first invasive abdominal surgeries in which the patient survived, and his surgical techniques established the potential safety and efficacy of ovarian and abdominal surgery in the 1800s.