Around the world there are, we think, at least 50 million couples unable to have children naturally. But for many of them, another British breakthrough - pioneered in the 1970s - and coming to fruition actually around the time of Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee - gave them hope that they might become parents after all. Julia Ravey reports…
Julia - Another biological miracle during her Majesty's reign arrived on 25th July 1978...in the form of Louise Brown, the world's first "test tube" baby. The pioneering science that made it all possible was born out of a partnership hatched ten years earlier between Cambridge University scientist Bob Edwards, and Oldham-based obstetrician Patrick Steptoe. Patients undergoing fertility investigations in Patrick's clinics allowed the duo to collect eggs that were mixed with sperm in the dish to see if they would fertilise. It took more than a decade for the pair, who also recruited research nurse Jean Purdy to join the effort, to work out the right hormone levels for retrieving the eggs; discover how to handle the eggs they extracted so that they remained alive and healthy outside the body; find out how to fertilise the eggs successfully, and how to allow the resulting embryos to develop so they were robust enough to return to the womb; and, critically, they had to discover when to put them back into the woman so they could implant. The technology finally triumphed in 1978 when Louise was born by caesarian section, an occasion so overwhelming that her dad immediately handed her back to the medical staff because he was shaking so violently and was terrified he might drop this amazing biological breakthrough! Louise only realised her special status a bit later on, as she told us when she joined us on this programme to celebrate her 40th birthday in 2018...
Louise - I can remember we had, when I was in senior school, I went into the science lab and opened the science book and there was a big picture of me in there. And the teacher said yes Louise, you’re in this book and I was all embarrassed.
Julia - But at the time of her birth, not everyone celebrated; even the acclaimed DNA scientist James Watson rounded on Bob Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, and the Daily Mail ran a story titled, "Amid the rejoicing there are those who shiver involuntarily; where, they ask, is all this going to end?" Well it's actually ended, so far, with the birth of more than 8 million healthy IVF children around the world. Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy are sadly no longer with us, but Bob Edwards won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine for a scientific leap forward that has, literally, changed lives. And contrary to the negative sentiment and sombre predictions of some prominent scientists in the seventies, many of those born by IVF, including Louise Brown herself, have since gone on to have their own healthy children that have been conceived naturally. What an amazing British breakthrough to have seen during our lifetimes, and Queen Elizabeth's time on the throne...
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