University news

Former biochemical researcher at the University of Glasgow, Professor Robert Edwards has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
 
Principal Anton Muscatelli said: "On behalf of everyone at the University of Glasgow, I would like to congratulate Professor Robert Edwards on the recognition of his lifetime's work by the Nobel committee. It is source of great pride to the University, and an inspiration to our dedicated current medical researchers, that a former biochemist from the University has won such a prestigious honour." 

Born in 1925, Professor Edwards was educated at the Universities of Bangor and Edinburgh. He worked in the Biochemistry department at the University of Glasgow from 1962 until 1963 and published a number of research papers with this affiliation.

Edwards began work on fertilisation in 1955, and forged his research partnership with gynaecologist surgeon Dr Patrick Steptoe in 1968. Although the first successful human test-tube fertilisation took place by 1970, research did not result in a successful pregnancy for ten years. By the late 1970s, funding for Steptoe and Edwards' project was running out, and their work met with scepticism, resistance and set-backs. But in 1978, a breakthrough resulted in a healthy pregnancy and the birth of the first ever 'test tube baby', Louise Brown.

Edwards and Steptoe went on to establish the first IVF clinic at Bourn Hall, Cambridge, in 1980. Before Dr Steptoe died in 1988, Edwards, now a Professor of Human Reproduction at Cambridge, was able to tell his seriously ill colleague that one thousand babies had been conceived at the clinic.

Now aged 85, Professor Edwards has a living legacy to his work with over four million children born as a result of IVF.

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Further information: Martin Shannon, Senior Media Relations Officer
University of Glasgow Tel: 0141 330 8593

First published: 6 October 2010