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Born on this day
Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda was an Italian writer and a Nobel Prize winner.
39th week in year
27 September 2024

Important personalitiesBack

Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards27.9.1925

Wikipedia (24 Sep 2013, 15:15)

Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards,  (27 September 1925 – 10 April 2013) was an English physiologist and pioneer in reproductive medicine and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in particular. Along with surgeon Patrick Steptoe, Edwards successfully pioneered conception through IVF, which led to the birth of Louise Brown  on 25 July 1978. This was achieved with the drug Pergonal which was already used for ovarian follicular stimulation in infertile women. It was developed by Serono, the global biotechnology business built by three generations of the Bertarelli family. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of in vitro fertilization".


Early career

Edwards was born in Batley, Yorkshire. He attended The Henry Box School in Witney. After finishing Manchester Central High School on Whitworth Street in central Manchester, he served in the British Army, and then completed his undergraduate studies in biology at the Bangor University. He studied at the Institute of Animal Genetics and Embryology at Edinburgh University, where he was awarded a PhD in 1955. After a year as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology he joined the scientific staff of the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill. After a further year at the University of Glasgow, in 1963 he moved to the University of Cambridge as Ford Foundation Research Fellow at the Department of Physiology, and a member of Churchill College, Cambridge. He was appointed Reader in physiology in 1969.


Human fertilisation

Circa 1960 Edwards started to study human fertilisation, and he continued his work at Cambridge, laying the groundwork for his later success. In 1968 he was able to achieve fertilisation of a human egg in the laboratory and started to collaborate with Patrick Steptoe, a gynecologic surgeon from Oldham. Edwards developed human culture media to allow the fertilisation and early embryo culture, while Steptoe utilized laparoscopy to recover ovocytes from patients with tubal infertility. Their attempts met significant hostility and opposition, including a refusal of the Medical Research Council to fund their research and a number of lawsuits. Additional historical information on this controversial era in the development of IVF has been published.

The birth of Louise Brown, the world's first 'test-tube baby', at 11:47 pm on 25 July 1978 at the Oldham General Hospital made medical history: in vitro fertilisation meant a new way to help infertile couples who formerly had no possibility of having a baby.

Refinements in technology have increased pregnancy rates and it is estimated that in 2010 about 4 million children have been born by IVF, with approximately 170,000 coming from donated oocyte and embryos. Their breakthrough laid the groundwork for further innovations such as intracytoplasmatic sperm injection ICSI, embryo biopsy (PGD), and stem cell research.

Edwards and Steptoe founded the Bourn Hall Clinic as a place to advance their work and train new specialists. Steptoe died in 1988. Edwards continued on in his career as a scientist and an editor of medical journals.

   
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