IVF at 40: revisiting the revolution in assisted reproduction
By Heidi Ledford,
Nature
| 07. 23. 2018
By 2100, in vitro fertilization (IVF) might account for 3.5% of the global population — some 400 million people. It has already produced an estimated 6 million babies. Little wonder, then, that we tend to forget how remarkable IVF is, or how controversial it was 40 years ago, when researchers used the technique to conceive Louise Brown, the world’s first ‘test-tube’ baby.
London’s Science Museum celebrates Brown’s 40th birthday with an exhibition on the history and science of the procedure. Visitors to IVF: 6 Million Babies Later travel from the frustrating early days of research, when failure seemed unrelenting and funding unavailable, to today’s drive to improve global access to the technique.
The British researchers who blazed the trail in the 1960s loom large here. Among them were embryologist Robert Edwards (the first person to artificially fertilize human eggs in the laboratory), technician Jean Purdy and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe. Purdy’s inclusion is key: not only did she nurture the embryo that would become Brown, but she was also the first to describe the early human blastocyst’s formation. Yet...
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The Center for Genetics and Society is delighted to recommend the current edition of GMWatch Review – Number 589. UK-based GMWatch, a long-standing ally, was founded in 1998 by Jonathan Matthews as an independent organization seeking to counter the enormous corporate political power and propaganda of the GMO industry and its supporters. Matthews and Claire Robinson are its directors and managing editors.
CGS works to ensure that social justice, equity, human rights, and democratic governance are front...