Chercheurs

Médecine / EDWARDS, ROBERT G.

Position

British biologist

Emeritus Professor of Human Reproduction at Cambridge University, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Thèmes de recherche

His major contribution was the technology of in vitro fertilization.

Edwards began work on fertilisation in 1955, and began his partnership with Dr Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist surgeon, 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. During this time, Edwards supervised students at Churchill College.

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 found 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.

Prix et récompenses

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010 \"for the development of in vitro fertilization\"

2001 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award \"For the development of in vitro fertilization, a technological advance that has revolutionized the treatment of human infertility.\"

Publications

Fowler, R.E., and Edwards, R.G. (1957) Induction of superovulation and pregnancy in mature mice by gonadotrophions. J. Endocrin. 15: 374–384.

Edwards, R.G. (1965) Maturation in vitro of mouse, sheep, cow, pig, rhesus monkey and human ovarian oocytes. Nature 208: 349–351.

Cole, R.J., Edwards, R.J., and Paul, J. (1966) Cytodifferentiation and embryogenesis in cell colonies and tissue cultures derived from ova and blastocysts of the rabbit. Dev. Biol. 13: 385–407.

Gardner, R.L., and Edward, R.J. (1968) Control of the sex ratio at full term in the rabbit by transferring sexed blastocysts. Nature 218: 346–349.

Edwards, R.G., Bavister, B.D. and Steptoe, P.C. (1969) Early stages of fertilization in vitro of human oocytes matured in vitro. Nature 221: 632–635.

Steptoe, P.C., and Edwards, R.G. (1978) Birth after the reimplantation of a human embryo. Lancet 2: 366.

Edwards, R. G., Steptoe, P.C. and Purdy, J. M. (1980) Establishing full-term human pregancies using cleaving embryos grown in vitro. Br. J. Obstet. Gynaecol. 87: 737–756.

Steptoe, P.C., Edwards, R.G., and Purdy, J. M. (1980) Clinical aspects of pregnancies established with cleaving embryos grown in vitro. Br. J. Obstet. Gynaecol. 87: 757–768.

Edwards, R.G. (1981) Test-tube babies, 1981. Nature 293: 253–256.

Edwards, R.G. (1997) Recent scientific and medical advances in assisted human conception. Int. J. Dev. Biol. 41: 255–262.