Edwards, Robert Geoffrey (1925- )

British physiologist. With Patrick Steptoe he devised a technique for fertilizing a human egg outside the body and transferring the fertilized embryo to the uterus of a woman. A child born following the use of this technique is popularly known as a ‘test-tube baby’. Edwards's research has added to knowledge of the development of the human egg and embryo.

In the 1950s Edwards successfully replanted mouse embryos into the uterus of a mouse and he wondered if the same process could be applied to humans. In 1965 he first attempted the in vitro fertilization of human eggs, not succeeding until 1967. Steptoe had just invented a new technique, laparoscopy, to view the internal organs. Edwards and Steptoe met in 1968 and arranged to collaborate.

Steptoe treated volunteer patients with a fertility drug to stimulate maturation of the eggs in the ovary, while Edwards devised a simple piece of apparatus to be used with the laparoscope for collecting mature eggs from human ovaries. He then prepared them for fertilization. In 1971, once they were sure that the fertilized eggs were developing normally, Edwards and Steptoe were ready to introduce an eight-celled embryo into the uterus of a volunteer patient, but their attempts were unsuccessful until 1977, when they abandoned the use of the fertility drug.

Edwards was educated at the universities of Wales and Edinburgh. He has held academic positions in Scotland and California, and was at the National Institute of Medical Research, London 1958-62. In 1963 he moved to the Department of Physiology at Cambridge.