- Email: [email protected]
Friend and advisor
1960s
9
of Reading. Thaddeus Mann and Brian Setchell chaired a symposium on ‘Secretions of the Male and Female Reproductive Tracts’ where Bob and I presented back-toback lectures: ‘Follicular Fluid’ and ‘Oviductal and Uterine Fluids’ respectively. This symposium successfully served as a template for a subsequent Gordon Research Conference under the identical heading. The ideals of the Exeter meeting developed further and further, leading to the development of successful IVF in 1978 and finally to the basis of Bob’s recent outstanding award, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Needless to say, we are also gratefully aware of the large recent chapter of scientific history, which began in 1984 with the foundation of ESHRE and demonstrated worldwide all the brilliant facets of Bob’s abilities and power as scientist, research manager and editor. Bob Edwards
personal memories
Richard Bronson, M.D. Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pathology, Director of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Stony Brook University Medical Centre, USA I first met Bob in 1969. At the time, I was working in Anne McLaren’s lab in Edinburgh, taking time from my clinical training in surgery as a junior resident. Funded by an NIH grant fostering academic careers in medicine, my research was centred on the need to obtain mammalian eggs. Anne had been performing uterine blastocyst transfers in mice and had obtained handwritten notes from Andrzej Tarkowski, in Warsaw, who had developed a technique to transfer one-cell fertilized eggs to the oviduct. My job was to learn this technique as a prelude to my research. To see babies born and suckling, when three weeks earlier, I had seen them as fertilized eggs! Although decades ago, I remember the excitement and controversy stirred by the publication of Bob Edwards, Barry Bavister, and Patrick Steptoe in Nature that year, in which the first successful fertilization of a human egg in vitro was described. It was unclear, at the time, how many years would pass before the birth of the first child conceived by IVF. Our Unit was filled with discussion as to whether the evidence presented was sufficient to prove in-vitro fertilization had taken place. A similar claim by John Rock and Miriam Menkin in 1944 had never been substantiated in subsequent work. I recall a long discussion as to what would constitute proof of IVF, people looking at the published article of Edwards et al. with scepticism. There was also talk as to whether this work should proceed, without more detailed knowledge of fertilization in nonhuman species, and debates over the merits of what we now call translational research versus pure basic research, as if the former had a secondary status. I decided to take a train from Edinburgh to Cambridge, to visit Bob and discuss his work and my own. We also talked about the value and limits of applied science. I was struck by his commitment to an idea and came away feeling this was something I wanted to participate in. My work continued in Anne’s lab for the remainder of the year, studying the effects of removal of the zona pellucida on oviductal transport of fertilized eggs and embryos. I returned to New
York with plans to switch careers, training in obstetrics and gynecology rather than surgery, and was fortunate that Luigi Mastroianni offered me a position at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Years later, having established myself, Bob invited me to be on the editorial board of Human Reproduction. I doubt Bob remembers my first visit with him as a very junior clinical scientist. Nor does he realize his influence on me. Bob Edwards tribute Bruce Cattanach Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK My contacts with Bob Edwards were limited during the highest spots of his career, although of course I could not help but hear of his achievements with human invitro fertilization. Instead I knew Bob at the start of his research when he was working with laboratory mice in Professor Waddington’s Institute of Animal Genetics and I was a fresh PhD student working with Lotte Auerbach. My speciality-to-be was chemical mutagenesis in mice and it was immediately clear that Bob had many of the techniques that were needed. He had even conducted preliminary studies using triethylene melamine (TEM), the chemical I was to study, assaying sperm production, fertilization rates, and duration of infertility following treatment of males. The meticulous nature of his work and his systematic approach had an immediate impact upon me and I was proud to have a joint paper with him in 1958. I was not his student but he spent many hours, often late into the night in the steamy heat of the barelyventilated mouse facilities, teaching me techniques for inducing ovulation, and the demanding procedures for artificial insemination. In fact, so much of his work on mouse reproductive biology with collaborators such as Julio Sirlin, Alan Gates, and of course his wife-to-be, Ruth Fowler, provided the tools and understanding for so much of my own mouse mutagenesis studies, and indeed much of the radiation and chemical mutation work around the world that was to follow. Bob’s drive and dedication even in those early days were inspirational. His productivity was immense, but I think it was his bubbling enthusiasm for his research that influenced me the most. Thank you, my friend. Friend and advisor Joseph C Daniel Virginia, USA Only two years my chronological senior, Bob Edwards has, nevertheless, long been the focus of my aspiration. No surprise to me his Nobel recognition, only the question lingers: why so long in coming? To me, with or without the prize he has always been a champion. Robert Edwards is a scientist’s scientist. Meticulous and accurate in his own research, he is intolerant of shoddy inquiry, and quick to say so. Where he saw potential he had a capacity for constructive criticism that he offered in the form of questions, always delivered with humour and sensitivity, that inevitably profited the
10 receiver. His achievements, pioneering in the field of human reproduction, reflect his quest for understanding life’s mysteries, but always with concern for how his discoveries might be applied so as to contribute to improving the human condition. In the face of fading memory, it is hard to be certain as to when I first met Bob, but believe it was at a conference in Helsinki in 1963 where we were both giving papers. The culture and manipulation of mammalian embryos in vitro were the hot topics of the time and as this permeated the world of biology, Robert Edwards’ name showed brighter and brighter. I was just completing a post-doctoral term with Theodore Puck at the University of Colorado Medical Centre, learning tissue culture techniques that I intended to utilize with preimplantation rabbit embryos and expected the conference to give me insight into the world’s leadership in the field. I was not disappointed. Some five years later I had opportunity to work in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge University as a National Science Foundation Fellow for academic year 1968 69 with Professor Dennis New who was developing techniques for culturing post-implantation stage embryos. I envisioned starting with my methods for growing preimplantation stages, followed by New’s procedures for post-implantation stages and using marsupial embryos from species that had only a 12-day gestation period with minimal placentation. Success would have made possible the full-term development of the embryo of a mammal in vitro. Fortunately the laboratories of New and Edwards were side-by-side so I enjoyed frequent exposure to their work, to their wisdom, their experience and their challenges. Tea-time meetings were particularly profitable when Bob would raise insightful questions about a project’s protocol, motive, experimental design, results or conclusions. When my project was being discussed he emphasized the difference between theory and reality and led me to a more realistic perception of the complexities of full-term culture. At other times Bob’s general commentaries taught me to fine tune my hypotheses, my techniques and my operational skills. I credit him with having made me a better scientist by the time I left Cambridge than when I arrived there and for that I have been forever grateful. Incidentally, to date no one has cultured embryos full-term; Bob was right!
Bob Edwards Nobel Laureate
Fig. 1. Bob and his co-researcher Patrick Steptoe after award of Honorary Doctorates of Science at Hull University, 1983.
Glasgow and Hull memories Edwin A Dawes Emeritus Professor, Hull University It was in the Biochemistry Department at Glasgow University where I first met Bob Edwards when he arrived there in 1962 to spend a year with Dr John Paul, who ran the tissue culture laboratory and was later to become Director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research. At that time, I was a Senior Lecturer running the microbiological biochemistry laboratory and we became good neighbours. Bob, the Lancastrian, and I, the Yorkshireman, naturally shared an enthusiasm for cricket, and I was delighted when Bob would bring his portable radio into the lab and we could keep abreast of progress in the test matches of that
Fig. 2. Bob with Professor Stephen Killick at the IVF Unit in the Princess Royal Hospital, Hull, in 2000. Photo courtesy of Hull Daily Mail.
summer, albeit with little joy as the West Indies soundly trounced England. We both left Glasgow in 1963 when I went to Hull University and Bob to the Physiology Department in Cambridge where his seminal work on in-vitro fertilization was to take place. In the face of scepticism, ethical and religious hostility, Bob determinedly continued his
9
of Reading. Thaddeus Mann and Brian Setchell chaired a symposium on ‘Secretions of the Male and Female Reproductive Tracts’ where Bob and I presented back-toback lectures: ‘Follicular Fluid’ and ‘Oviductal and Uterine Fluids’ respectively. This symposium successfully served as a template for a subsequent Gordon Research Conference under the identical heading. The ideals of the Exeter meeting developed further and further, leading to the development of successful IVF in 1978 and finally to the basis of Bob’s recent outstanding award, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Needless to say, we are also gratefully aware of the large recent chapter of scientific history, which began in 1984 with the foundation of ESHRE and demonstrated worldwide all the brilliant facets of Bob’s abilities and power as scientist, research manager and editor. Bob Edwards
personal memories
Richard Bronson, M.D. Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Pathology, Director of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Stony Brook University Medical Centre, USA I first met Bob in 1969. At the time, I was working in Anne McLaren’s lab in Edinburgh, taking time from my clinical training in surgery as a junior resident. Funded by an NIH grant fostering academic careers in medicine, my research was centred on the need to obtain mammalian eggs. Anne had been performing uterine blastocyst transfers in mice and had obtained handwritten notes from Andrzej Tarkowski, in Warsaw, who had developed a technique to transfer one-cell fertilized eggs to the oviduct. My job was to learn this technique as a prelude to my research. To see babies born and suckling, when three weeks earlier, I had seen them as fertilized eggs! Although decades ago, I remember the excitement and controversy stirred by the publication of Bob Edwards, Barry Bavister, and Patrick Steptoe in Nature that year, in which the first successful fertilization of a human egg in vitro was described. It was unclear, at the time, how many years would pass before the birth of the first child conceived by IVF. Our Unit was filled with discussion as to whether the evidence presented was sufficient to prove in-vitro fertilization had taken place. A similar claim by John Rock and Miriam Menkin in 1944 had never been substantiated in subsequent work. I recall a long discussion as to what would constitute proof of IVF, people looking at the published article of Edwards et al. with scepticism. There was also talk as to whether this work should proceed, without more detailed knowledge of fertilization in nonhuman species, and debates over the merits of what we now call translational research versus pure basic research, as if the former had a secondary status. I decided to take a train from Edinburgh to Cambridge, to visit Bob and discuss his work and my own. We also talked about the value and limits of applied science. I was struck by his commitment to an idea and came away feeling this was something I wanted to participate in. My work continued in Anne’s lab for the remainder of the year, studying the effects of removal of the zona pellucida on oviductal transport of fertilized eggs and embryos. I returned to New
York with plans to switch careers, training in obstetrics and gynecology rather than surgery, and was fortunate that Luigi Mastroianni offered me a position at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Years later, having established myself, Bob invited me to be on the editorial board of Human Reproduction. I doubt Bob remembers my first visit with him as a very junior clinical scientist. Nor does he realize his influence on me. Bob Edwards tribute Bruce Cattanach Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK My contacts with Bob Edwards were limited during the highest spots of his career, although of course I could not help but hear of his achievements with human invitro fertilization. Instead I knew Bob at the start of his research when he was working with laboratory mice in Professor Waddington’s Institute of Animal Genetics and I was a fresh PhD student working with Lotte Auerbach. My speciality-to-be was chemical mutagenesis in mice and it was immediately clear that Bob had many of the techniques that were needed. He had even conducted preliminary studies using triethylene melamine (TEM), the chemical I was to study, assaying sperm production, fertilization rates, and duration of infertility following treatment of males. The meticulous nature of his work and his systematic approach had an immediate impact upon me and I was proud to have a joint paper with him in 1958. I was not his student but he spent many hours, often late into the night in the steamy heat of the barelyventilated mouse facilities, teaching me techniques for inducing ovulation, and the demanding procedures for artificial insemination. In fact, so much of his work on mouse reproductive biology with collaborators such as Julio Sirlin, Alan Gates, and of course his wife-to-be, Ruth Fowler, provided the tools and understanding for so much of my own mouse mutagenesis studies, and indeed much of the radiation and chemical mutation work around the world that was to follow. Bob’s drive and dedication even in those early days were inspirational. His productivity was immense, but I think it was his bubbling enthusiasm for his research that influenced me the most. Thank you, my friend. Friend and advisor Joseph C Daniel Virginia, USA Only two years my chronological senior, Bob Edwards has, nevertheless, long been the focus of my aspiration. No surprise to me his Nobel recognition, only the question lingers: why so long in coming? To me, with or without the prize he has always been a champion. Robert Edwards is a scientist’s scientist. Meticulous and accurate in his own research, he is intolerant of shoddy inquiry, and quick to say so. Where he saw potential he had a capacity for constructive criticism that he offered in the form of questions, always delivered with humour and sensitivity, that inevitably profited the
10 receiver. His achievements, pioneering in the field of human reproduction, reflect his quest for understanding life’s mysteries, but always with concern for how his discoveries might be applied so as to contribute to improving the human condition. In the face of fading memory, it is hard to be certain as to when I first met Bob, but believe it was at a conference in Helsinki in 1963 where we were both giving papers. The culture and manipulation of mammalian embryos in vitro were the hot topics of the time and as this permeated the world of biology, Robert Edwards’ name showed brighter and brighter. I was just completing a post-doctoral term with Theodore Puck at the University of Colorado Medical Centre, learning tissue culture techniques that I intended to utilize with preimplantation rabbit embryos and expected the conference to give me insight into the world’s leadership in the field. I was not disappointed. Some five years later I had opportunity to work in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge University as a National Science Foundation Fellow for academic year 1968 69 with Professor Dennis New who was developing techniques for culturing post-implantation stage embryos. I envisioned starting with my methods for growing preimplantation stages, followed by New’s procedures for post-implantation stages and using marsupial embryos from species that had only a 12-day gestation period with minimal placentation. Success would have made possible the full-term development of the embryo of a mammal in vitro. Fortunately the laboratories of New and Edwards were side-by-side so I enjoyed frequent exposure to their work, to their wisdom, their experience and their challenges. Tea-time meetings were particularly profitable when Bob would raise insightful questions about a project’s protocol, motive, experimental design, results or conclusions. When my project was being discussed he emphasized the difference between theory and reality and led me to a more realistic perception of the complexities of full-term culture. At other times Bob’s general commentaries taught me to fine tune my hypotheses, my techniques and my operational skills. I credit him with having made me a better scientist by the time I left Cambridge than when I arrived there and for that I have been forever grateful. Incidentally, to date no one has cultured embryos full-term; Bob was right!
Bob Edwards Nobel Laureate
Fig. 1. Bob and his co-researcher Patrick Steptoe after award of Honorary Doctorates of Science at Hull University, 1983.
Glasgow and Hull memories Edwin A Dawes Emeritus Professor, Hull University It was in the Biochemistry Department at Glasgow University where I first met Bob Edwards when he arrived there in 1962 to spend a year with Dr John Paul, who ran the tissue culture laboratory and was later to become Director of the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research. At that time, I was a Senior Lecturer running the microbiological biochemistry laboratory and we became good neighbours. Bob, the Lancastrian, and I, the Yorkshireman, naturally shared an enthusiasm for cricket, and I was delighted when Bob would bring his portable radio into the lab and we could keep abreast of progress in the test matches of that
Fig. 2. Bob with Professor Stephen Killick at the IVF Unit in the Princess Royal Hospital, Hull, in 2000. Photo courtesy of Hull Daily Mail.
summer, albeit with little joy as the West Indies soundly trounced England. We both left Glasgow in 1963 when I went to Hull University and Bob to the Physiology Department in Cambridge where his seminal work on in-vitro fertilization was to take place. In the face of scepticism, ethical and religious hostility, Bob determinedly continued his