Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards, CBE FRS, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, 2010

Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards, CBE, FRS (27 September 1925 – 10 April 2013) was an English physiologist and pioneer in reproductive medicine, and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in particular. Along with the surgeon Patrick Steptoe, Edwards successfully pioneered conception through IVF, which led to the birth of Louise Brown on 25 July 1978. They founded the first IVF program for infertile patients and trained other scientists in their techniques. Edwards was the founding editor-in-chief of Human Reproduction in 1986. In 2010, Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of in vitro fertilisation".

Early career

Edwards was born in Batley, Yorkshire, and 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.

Family

He married Ruth Fowler Edwards (1930-2013), also a scientist with significant work, granddaughter of 1908 Nobel laureate physicist Ernest Rutherford and daughter of physicist Ralph Fowler, in 1956. The couple had 5 daughters and 12 grandchildren.