Nobel Prize awarded to Robert G. Edwards for inventing In Vitro Fertilization

www.LAtimes.com

British biologist, Robert G Edwards, 85, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine for his contribution of technology for in vitro fertilization.

Along with Dr. Patrick Steptoe, Edwards took a mature egg and fertilized it in a test tube before implanting it back into the mother.

Steptoe was not named as a recipient of the $1.5-million prize because Nobel rules require that an honoree be alive at the time of the award according to The Los Angeles Times. He died in 1988, 13 years before New York's Lasker Foundation awarded Edwards its top award, which is often viewed as a precursor to the Nobel.

Edwards' first attempt at fertilization was in 1969 where he was able to fertilize an egg in a laboratory petri dish but the egg would not go beyond the first cellular division according to The Los Angeles Times. Edwards reasoned that the egg needed to develop in the womb. Next, he contacted Steptoe, a gynecologist who was one of the pioneers in laparoscopy, in which a thin telescope inserted through the vagina is used to observe the ovaries and manipulate eggs.

Together they turned out to be quite the pair.

The first child to be born via test tube was Louise Brown in 1978. Brown's birth demonstrated the success and safety of Edwards' and Steptoe's efforts and opened a whole new world for infertile couples.

Currently, 10 percent of couples are unable to conceive naturally according to The Los Angeles Times and an estimated 142,000 IVF procedures are performed each year in the U.S. at a cost of about $4 billion. The success rate is about 1 in every 5 procedures, about the same rate as conventional attempts to become pregnant.