Bob Edwards – Nobel Laureate in Medicine 2010

Abstract

On the morning of Monday 4th October 2010, Ruth, Sarah and Meg Edwards, together with Fiona Bennett, Caroline Blackwell and Martin Johnson, gathered around the screen in the Reproductive BioMedicine Online office at Duck End Farm near Cambridge just as Bob’s Nobel award was announced. For a moment, those present could not begin to comprehend what was happening. All hope of this ever occurring had drained away after so many years of Bob’s colleagues, students and patients hoping and trying, apparently in vain. The smiles and laughter, often through bitter-sweet tears, in the office that day accompanied our struggles to cope with press interviews, drafting press releases, taking calls from Stockholm, but above all the massive wave of joy we experienced from the emails, phone calls and blogs. This is a man loved, thanked and respected across the whole world. The press offices of Bourn Hall Clinic, the University of Cambridge, and the Science Media Centre all clicked into action and together we ended the day exhausted but at last with time for reflection, together with Jacques Cohen, Gedis Grudzinskas and Kamal Ahuja. First, it is so appropriate that Bob’s colleagues and family were in the office of Reproductive Biomedicine Online when the news reached us. Bob has dedicated the past 10 years to the founding and development of this journal, and has characteristically thrown all his massive reserves of vision, energy, intellect and enthusiasm into this task. He would leave us all exhausted by his extraordinary work capacity – as indeed he has done through his whole career. The journal is a fine tribute to its founder and Editor Emeritus and, assuredly, the best way to honour him is to submit your best work to it. A second reflection concerned one question asked by several reporters: Who should have shared the prize? There are two answers to this question. Despite the many great advances in our field, many of them made by you, our readers, Bob Edwards bestrides the field uniquely. We cannot imagine that there is anyone who could feel they were passed over this year – as there have been in some years. The Nobel committee, like the Lasker committee before it, saw Bob as standing head and shoulders above all others – truly the ‘father of ART’. But this question also provoked sadness at the fact that neither Jean Purdy nor Patrick Steptoe are alive to share this glorious moment. Jeannie was a reassuring support to Bob’s work through all the dark days of the 1970s. And Bob and Patrick formed a uniquely effective combination of scientist and clinician, seeing each other as equals, both pioneers, both considered on the wilder fringes by the establishment, both determined – even stubborn – and each dedicated in the face of massive opposition – most woundingly to them from within their own professions. Patrick is the one man who could have shared this award. A third reflection concerned not just the scientific achievement, but its ethical impact. Bob is a deeply moral man, few have thought through the ethical implications of their work as consistently as he has. He was deeply wounded in 1971 by accusations of unethical behaviour from the UK Medical Research Council, but we like to think that the prize now celebrates his moral vision as much as his science. It is sad that, even today, in his first comments, Vatican Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula could not see that. A final reflection centred on the question: Why did it take so long to award the prize? We can only speculate on this question, and so forbore from answering it, referring the reporters to the Nobel committee. Perhaps that committee should have listened more carefully and much earlier to Louise Brown to whom we leave the last word: “It’s fantastic news. Me and mum are so glad that one of the pioneers of IVF has been given the recognition he deserves.”