Brian A. Levine/LinkedIn

Oct 31, 2026, 17:22

Brian A. Levine: Hip-Hop and IVF Are the Same Age

Brian A. Levine, Founder at Nodal, shared on LinkedIn:

“Why I’m standing in my operating room dressed as Run-DMC for Halloween: hip-hop and IVF are the same age.

One got a Hall of Fame. The other has made over 10 million babies.

Both started in the late ’70s. Both got called a gimmick by the establishment.
Both got loud and changed the world.

1978 – Louise Brown, first IVF baby, Oldham, UK. Twelve months later, “Rapper’s Delight” drops.
1981 – Elizabeth Carr, first American IVF baby, Norfolk, VA.
1984 – First donor-egg baby and first frozen-embryo baby, both Melbourne at Monash IVF Group. Run-DMC releases its debut album.
1985 – First gestational surrogacy pregnancy, Cleveland at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center Inc.. The baby arrives in ’86, the year Run-DMC walks this way with Aerosmith.
1990 – First babies born after embryo genetic testing, London via the NHS. Today I use PGT in almost every cycle.
1992 – First ICSI baby, Brussels, through the ground-breaking achievements of Gianpiero Palermo. Male factor infertility changed overnight.

Forty-some years later it’s 8:15am on Halloween, and we’re in the OR, standing on the shoulders of people who got laughed at for trying this.

Like Run-DMC said: it’s tricky. But the beat goes on.

If you or your kid are one of the 10 million – drop the year below.
Let’s build the rest of this timeline together.”

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