Pioneer of In Vitro Fertilization Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

The British scientist who pioneered techniques of in vitro fertilization, which in the last generation has revolutionized treatment for infertile couples who wish to bear children, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this morning. The researcher, Robert G. Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, will receive the prize, worth about $1.5-million this year, at a ceremony in December. Mr. Edwards’s work, which began in the 1950s and was conducted at Britain’s National Institute for Medical Research as well as at Cambridge and at the Bourn Hall Clinic, was crowned in 1978, with the birth of Louise Brown, dubbed the world’s first “test-tube baby.” Some four million more have followed. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, hailed Mr. Edwards, who worked with the now-deceased Patrick Steptoe, for not only making IVF possible through important discoveries but also making it safe and effective through refinements and training for IVF specialists at the clinic. In its citation, the institute said Mr. Edwards’s “contributions represent a milestone in the development of modern medicine.”