Robert G. Edwards

Sir Robert Geoffrey Edwards was born on 27 September of 1925 in Manchester is a British physiologist and pioneer in Reproductive medicine and in-vitro fertilization. Edwards successfully pioneered conception through IVF (in-vitro fertilization), which led to the birth of the first test-tube baby. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of in-vitro fertilization".

After finishing Manchester Central High School he served in the British Army, and then completed his undergraduate studies in agriculture at the University of Wales. In 1955 he received his Ph.D. and in 1963 he joined the University of Cambridge. In about 1960 Edwards started to study human fertilization, and he continued his work at Cambridge. In 1968 he was able to achieve fertilization of a human egg in the laboratory. Edwards developed human culture media to allow the fertilization and early embryo culture.

In-vitro fertilization meant a new way to help infertile couples who formerly had no possibility of having a baby. In 2010 about four million children have been born by IVF.Edwards continued a career as a scientist and an editor of medical journals and started to collaborate with Patrick Steptoe, a gynecologic. Edwards and Steptoe founded the Bourn Hall Clinic as a place to advance their work and train new specialists.

He recived many awards, these are one of them:

· In 1984, Edwards was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

· In 2001, he was awarded the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award
"for the development of in vitro fertilization, a technological advance that has revolutionized the treatment of human infertility."

· On 4 October 2010, it was announced that Edwards had been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of in-vitro fertilization and for advancing treatment of infertility and noted that IVF babies have similar health statuses to ordinary babies.

His wife is Ruth Fowler Edwards, the granddaughter of physicist Ernest Rutherford and daughter of physicist Ralph Fowler.

I chose this person because in my opinion  what he did is very interesting. He give the possibility to infertile cuoples to have a child. This is very nice because there are a lot of couples that they don't have the possibility to have a child. If you want to see more information click here.