If every baby was named after the man who made it happen, there’d be a whole lot of kids named Robert Edwards. It’s not that the 85-year-old man is a prolific sperm donor, or promiscuous (though he might be both those things too, I don’t know him). Robert G. Edwards is the British doctor who helped create in-vitro fertilization, and now he’s won the Nobel Prize for his work. Since the birth of Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, in 1978, there have been about 4 million other children born via IVF that wouldn’t otherwise be on the planet.
More importantly, it’s given hope to the millions of hopeful couples that have trouble conceiving children, either through medical problems or lack of a male partner. Since he founded the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridge, Edwards has been a leading light in the field of fertility research. “His contributions represent a milestone in the development of modern medicine,” said the Nobel Assembly at the Swedish Karolinska Institute. “His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide. A new field of medicine has emerged, with Robert Edwards leading the process all the way from the fundamental discoveries to the current, successful IVF therapy.”
Tags: Robert G. Edwards, IVF, in-vitro fertilization, IVF creator wins Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize winner, Bourn Hall Clinic, Cambridge, England, fertility treatments, unusual medical news
