Robert Edwards (1925–2013) Pioneer of in Vitro Fertilization

COMMENT OBITUARY Robert Edwards (1925–2013) Pioneer of in vitro fertilization.

everal scientists have made discoveries In 1980, Edwards and Steptoe founded a that have saved millions of lives. Robert private fertility clinic at Bourn Hall, outside Edwards helped to create them. Cambridge. Edwards wanted to make IVF SEdwards, who died on 10 April, was born acceptable but also, as the father of five daugh- in 1925 in Batley, UK, a West Yorkshire mill ters, to speak up for people who were infer- town, and educated in Manchester. He stud- tile. Edwards was their champion in ethically ied agriculture and zoology at the University charged battles with scientists, theologians, of Wales, in Bangor, UK, after nearly four politicians and even Nobel laureates, whose STUDIO/SPL CORBIN O’GRADY years of military service. In 1951, he gradu- pantheon he later joined. His hopes were ated with only a pass. Despite this inauspi- vindicated, but success had come at the price cious start, his friend John Slee remembered of being accused of everything from killing much later that Edwards had been “ambi- embryonic ‘babies’ to courting the media. tious and flexible, and unusually confident Our beloved professor could be madden- in his own judgement”. ing when he rolled out ideas for experiments Soon after Edwards had enrolled at the like a newspaper press. The late grande dame University of Edinburgh, UK, to pursue a of embryology, Anne McLaren, a contempo- diploma in animal genetics, his professor, rary of Bob’s, once told me: “From scores of Conrad Waddington, offered him a PhD ideas, some gems he digs up sparkle so bril- studentship and later a fellowship. At Edin- liantly they take your breath away.” Bob gave burgh, in collaboration with fellow graduate his students freedom to explore, and in an student Ruth Fowler (Edwards’ future wife egalitarian environment we flourished. and granddaughter of the eminent physicist At a now legendary meeting at the Royal Still full of energy after retiring in 1989, Ernest Rutherford) Edwards established how Society of Medicine in London, he found the Bob became a founder–editor of several to manipulate ovulation in mice. Six years on, ideal partner. Patrick Steptoe, a senior gynae- major journals and continued to oversee with a bundle of research papers, including cologist from Oldham, UK, had completed Reproductive BioMedicine Online until past several of the many that would be published pioneering work on laparoscopy. Derided by the age of 80. He lived long enough to enjoy in Nature, Edwards was becoming someone colleagues in gynaecology, this was a surgi- seeing his controversial programme enter to watch. cal technique that Edwards needed to col- mainstream medicine. IVF has led to the After a brief spell at the California Insti- lect eggs from patients. Both men wanted to banking and donation of eggs and embryos, tute of Technology in Pasadena, Edwards was conquer infertility and both had experienced the ability to genetically diagnose embryos recruited by physiologist Alan Parkes to the professional controversy. Their relationship before they are implanted in the uterus, Medical Research Council (MRC) National prospered, helped by Jean Purdy, a nurse who treatment for male infertility, and human Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in was trained by Edwards as a lab technician. embryonic stem-cell technology, which Bob Mill Hill, London, to help develop vaccines Edwards, Steptoe and a student reported had anticipated in the 1960s. Assisted repro- as contraceptives for women. In his spare the first convincing evidence of human ductive technology has transformed the very time, Edwards returned to the study of eggs, fertilization in vitro in 1969. The clinical definition of ‘family’. primarily wanting to understand the basis of implications of the breakthrough predicted Last year, Bob’s papers were on display next chromosomal abnormalities, as well as what by Edwards could no longer be dismissed as to the famous handbag of former British Con- causes eggs to ripen — a necessary first step pie in the sky. Media attention reached new servative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to achieving in vitro fertilization, or IVF. heights, and a bitter tide of criticism flooded at his college in Cambridge (Churchill). He In the early 1960s, a new NIMR director in from scientists, physicians and politicians. and Thatcher were born and died within banned research on human IVF. Following After the MRC declined Edwards’ and days of each other and, although political this discouragement, in 1963 Edwards joined Steptoe’s grant application, ostensibly because opposites, both stubbornly held visions of a Parkes, who had moved to the Physiological of concerns about safety, their programme different world, which they strove to make a Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, continued to be stretched between Oldham reality. By 1990, Thatcher’s government had UK. Edwards remained at the university for and Cambridge on a shoestring budget. There introduced legislation that made IVF widely the rest of his life. were still so many unanswered questions. available. It would be another 20 years and the At Cambridge, Edwards’ team — which I Would fertility drugs be needed? Would the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which joined as a PhD student in 1970 — focused resulting embryos be healthy? Edwards and was awarded to Bob in 2010, before he was on early mammalian development. In a Steptoe laboured for nearly a decade without a honoured with a knighthood. ■ 1965 Lancet paper, Edwards had outlined viable pregnancy, but in 1978, Louise Brown, a breathtaking programme for studying the the world’s first ‘test-tube’ baby was born. Roger Gosden is former director of genetics and development of eggs by fertiliz- After her birth, most of the hostility vapor- reproductive biology at Weill Cornell ing them in vitro. To obtain eggs, he needed ized; it seemed heartless to say that a bonny Medical College, New York, USA. He was a to collaborate with physicians, the gatekeep- IVF baby should never have been born. There research student and fellow under Edwards ers to patients, but his ‘harebrained’ agenda are now more than five million such babies, from 1970–76. made them wary. many of whom are parents themselves. e-mail: [email protected]