Robert Edwards

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Obituary

1620 

www.thelancet.com   Vol 381   May 11, 2013

Robert Edwards 

Physiologist who pioneered the development of 

in-vitro fertilisation. He was born in Batley, UK, 

on Sept 27, 1925, and died in Cambridge, UK, on 

April 10, 2013, aged 87 years.

One of the last times Robert Edwards spoke in public was 

to mark the UK’s National Infertility Day in 2008. His health 

declining, Edwards spoke for almost an hour about the 

early days of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). As he fi nished, the 

audience of patients and patient advocates rose to give 

him a standing ovation. “The applause went on and on 

and on. It was hugely moving”, remembers his colleague 

and former student Mike Macnamee, now chief executive 

of Bourn Hall fertility clinics. “Of all the times I saw him 

recognised in public, throughout the world, that really 

profoundly moved him, because it was from the people he 

was helping, the patients.” 

By pioneering the development of IVF, Edwards and his 

collaborator Patrick Steptoe have helped make possible the 

birth of millions of babies worldwide since 1978. Edwards’ 

life and work are “beacons of inspiration and persistence 

for everybody working in the fi eld”, says Macnamee. “There 

are fi ve and a half million families now who owe their very 

existence to Bob, and that legacy is the one that’s going to 

grow and multiply. I hope that each one of those families 

understands his contribution to their existence.”

Edwards’ work to overcome human infertility emerged 

from research into the genetics of egg maturation he had 

undertaken at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. 

As an academic, he was an inspirational fi gure,  recalls 

Martin Johnson, one of his fi rst graduate students and 

now Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Science at the 

University of Cambridge. “He completely captured our 

imagination with his vision, his breadth of knowledge, and 

his stimulating and exciting way of presenting it all.”

In February, 1968, a chance meeting at the Royal Society 

of Medicine in London resulted in Edwards collaborating 

with Steptoe, a gynaecologist whose pioneering work 

in laparoscopic surgery had generated hostility from the 

medical hierarchy. In December of that year, Edwards, 

Steptoe, and graduate student Barry Bavister submitted 

a paper to Nature that described IVF in human beings 

convincingly for the fi rst time. It was the beginning of what 

would prove to be a fruitful, yet diffi

  cult, decade for the two 

men. They quickly succeeded in collecting eggs from women 

after hormonal stimulation, and having eggs fertilised 

and dividing in vitro, but the media and some colleagues 

remained hostile. Funding was diffi

  cult to come by, and their 

willingness to talk to journalists off ended the sensibilities 

of some scientists. It was a combination of challenges that 

might have daunted less determined individuals. “This 

was a strong man, and his convictions were total”, says 

Alan Trounson, President of the California Institute for 

Regenerative Medicine, whose work in Melbourne, Australia, 

helped improve the success rate of IVF. “I think he was an 

extraordinary person from that point of view. He’d never 

waver, and would always argue that what he was doing was 

genuinely in the benefi t of the community.” 

Finally, in 1978, the fi rst IVF baby, Louise Joy Brown, was 

born at Oldham General Hospital. Louise’s parents, Lesley 

and John Brown, had been trying to conceive for 9 years. 

Edwards and Steptoe published this groundbreaking work 

in a letter to The Lancet. In 1980, the two men raised private 

funds to found Bourn Hall Clinic, the world’s fi rst dedicated 

IVF unit. As IVF became a more routine procedure, Edwards 

continued to lead the fi eld, helping found the European 

Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, and 

acting as editor of Human Reproduction.

Edwards served in the British military during World War 2. 

He studied biology at the University of Wales in Bangor and, 

in 1955, received a PhD in physiology from Edinburgh 

University. In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 

Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work in developing 

IVF. The next year he was knighted. The determination that 

characterised so much of Edwards’ career was underpinned 

by his socialist views, and a sense of humour, says Johnson. 

Before it was fashionable, Edwards supported legal reform 

on abortion, women’s rights, and gay rights. “He had a great 

desire to help humanity, and a feeling you had to prevent 

suff ering. And even when things were going wrong, he could 

always laugh about it”, recalls Johnson. Edwards is survived by 

his wife and long-time scientifi c collaborator, Ruth Edwards, 

along with their fi ve daughters and 12 grandchildren.

Stephen Pincock

For two landmark papers on 

IVF by Robert Edwards see 

Lancet 1965; 2: 926–29 and 

Lancet 1978; 2: 366.

For a Profi le of Robert Edwards 

see 

Perspectives

 Lancet 2010; 

376: 1293

Corbis