Test-tube baby pioneer wins medicine Nobel prize

(October 4, 2010) British physiologist Robert Edwards, whose work led to the first "test-tube baby", won the 2010 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology, the prize-awarding institute said on Monday. Sweden's Karolinska Institute lauded 85-year old Edwards for making it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide. Known as the father of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), Edwards picked up the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.5 million) for a "milestone in the development of modern medicine", the institute said. As many as 4 million babies have been born since the first test-tube baby in 1978 as a result of the techniques Edwards developed, together with a now-deceased colleague, Patrick Steptoe, it said. In in-vitro fertilization, conception takes place outside the woman’s body, in a Petri dish or test tube, after which the fertilised egg is transferred to the uterus with the intent to establish a successful pregnancy. The Catholic Church opposes all kinds of in vitro fertilisation because they dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.