Pioneer Of In Vitro Fertilization Dies

The world's pioneer of in vitro fertilization (IVF) passed away in his sleep Wednesday at home near Cambridge, England, following a long bought of illness.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010, and knighted in 2011, Robert Edwards, along with his colleague Dr. Patrick Steptoe, announced the birth of the first infant born from an egg fertilized outside the human body on July 25, 1978.

Now, over 30 years later, Louise Brown is a grown woman who, according to the BBC, "always regarded Robert Edwards as like a grandfather to me."

Brown isn't the only person whose life was made possible through the decades of research the man devoted to the subject of fertilization: today nearly 350,000 babies are born every year via IVF.

Such prevalence makes it hard to believe that infertility, which affects roughly 10 percent of couples, was once considered a minor issue and perhaps even a boon by keeping birthrates down. 

Edwards disagreed and pushed through both cultural and scientific boundaries in order to enable the discovery.

The history of IVF dates back to as early as 1935 when researchers proved that a fertilized rabbit egg could make it through the early stages of growth in vitro. Not until 1959, however, did scientists find that the eggs could be implanted into a female rabbit and go on to produce viable embryos.

The trick, however, was transferring this knowledge to human eggs, which, for one, proved much harder to come by.

Edwards solved this end of the problem when he found that, through the injection of certain hormones, he could induce a woman to release many eggs simultaneously, a process known as super-ovulation and previously thought to only work in animals.

Next came the process of maturing the eggs to a point that they could be fertilized - again, a process that hadn't been observed in human eggs outside of the human body. Edwards found, however, that like other mammalian eggs, it was possible. The only difference was that it took about three times as long.

With both of these issues resolved, Edwards was able to move onto the sperm, which had to be activated before it could penetrate the egg, a process he and graduate student at the time Barry Bavister found was possible by increasing the alkalinity of the growth medium in the laboratory.

By 1969, Edwards and Steptoe announced that they could fertilize human eggs in vitro. Hundreds of failed atempts and eight years later followed, however, until the duo decided to collect just a single egg that had matured naturally and attempt to fertilize it.

It was at this point that, after nine years of trying to conceive, Louise Brown's parents underwent the process, ultimately giving birth to a healthy baby girl via C-section.

About his death Brown further stated, "I am glad that he lived long enough to be recognized with a Nobel prize for his work, and his legacy will live on with all the IVF work being carried on throughout the world."