28/08/2026
Over the years, the Nobel Prize has recognised scientists whose discoveries have not only changed our everyday lives for the better, but saved them and created new ones.
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) has become a familiar and, for many, easily-accessible option to turn to when problems are encountered in conceiving a child, with more than 10 million babies born.
Medicine laureate Robert Edwards came up with the idea of helping childless couples to conceive by fertilising the mothers’ eggs outside the body and then replacing them in the womb in the 1950s. He faced multiple setbacks while working to make IVF the treatment it is now along with physiologist Robert Edwards and nurse and embryologist Jean Purdy.
Their resilience and determination led to the birth of Louise Brown, the world’s first ‘test tube baby’, in 1978.
Learn more about Edwards’ work and five other innovations that have changed our lives for the better: https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/can-you-imagine-life-without-these-discoveries/