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Is Your Birthday Worthy of a Nobel Prize? – The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize/LinkedIn

Sep 30, 2025, 12:51

Is Your Birthday Worthy of a Nobel Prize? – The Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Is your birthday worthy of a Nobel Prize? Louise Brown’s was.

Louise was the first IVF baby, born on this day in 1978. Her very existence was made by Nobel Prize laureate Robert Edwards, whose research enabled IVF. Although the media referred to Louise Brown as a ‘test tube baby’, her conception took place in a petri dish.

By removing an egg from the woman, allowing it to be fertilised in a petri dish and then replacing it in the woman, Edwards explained how eggs mature and how sperm is activated, and in cooperation with gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, found a method for removing eggs from the ovaries. Louise Brown made history as the first child born as a result of in vitro fertilisation.

Known as the ‘father of assisted reproductive technology,’ Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010, but two others may also have been recognised if they had lived longer.

Steptoe and nurse and researcher Jean Purdy were also IVF pioneers and with Edwards, established Bourn Hall, the world’s first IVF clinic. Together, their work has helped millions of people bring new life into the world.

Learn more.”