The British scientist whose work has helped millions of infertile couples to become parents has won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine.
Prof Robert Edwards pioneered in-vitro fertilisation, which led to the world’s first test tube baby.
He developed the procedure, in which eggs are fertilised outside the body and implanted in the womb, with Patrick Steptoe. Louise Brown became the first baby born through the treatment in 1978. The 85-year-old’s work had ‘brought joy’ to infertile people across the world, the medicine prize committee in Stockholm said in its citation.
‘His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting more than ten per cent of all couples worldwide,’ it added. An estimated 4million people have been born thanks to IVF and it gives infertile couples the same chance of having a baby (one in five) as fertile ones.
Dr Steptoe and Prof Edwards founded the first IVF clinic at Bourn Hall in Cambridge.
Prof Edwards recalled Dr Steptoe’s ‘look of joy’ when he told him shortly before his death in 1988 that 1,000 IVF babies had been born at Bourn Hall since Ms Brown.