| Abstract: | The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Dr. Robert Edwards for “the development of in vitro fertilization”.
The Nobel Assembly stated that the vision Edwards had of discovering a treatment for infertility is now “a reality and brings
joy to infertile people all over the world”. Indeed, looking back over my own familiarity with Edwards and with the treatment
of infertility by in vitro fertilization (IVF), I can think of only very few — if any — disciplines in medicine that owe their origins and their progress
so much to just one man. For Edwards it was his controversial experiments in oocyte maturation and fertilization that paved
the way for IVF. With the gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, he successfully pioneered the birth of the world’s first IVF baby
in July 1978, and thereby, in that single event, opened the door to IVF for so many individuals and clinics around the world. |
