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My connection with Bob Edwards
Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 23 Special Issue 1 (2011) 3 4
www.sciencedirect.com www.rbmonline.com
1950s Mouse prophecy
My connection with Bob Edwards
Huw Pritchard Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, York University, Ontario, Canada
Ann Silver The Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge, UK
My wife, Margaret, and I met Bob and Ruth Edwards at CalTech in 1957 when I was on sabbatical in the Chemistry Department and they held Fellowships in Biology: it happened that we had rented apartments in adjacent old houses at the junction of S Catalina Ave and San Pasqual St, about two minutes’ walk from our laboratories. Some weekends, we would take trips together around Southern California, but being very short of money (although we had decent stipends, the 30% US Witholding Tax for non-citizens was crippling), we went, and slept, in two very old cars at available campgrounds; it was not very comfortable, and Bob sometimes preferred his sleeping bag under the stars. Our longest joint trip was to Yosemite, for which we needed an early start; having assembled all the necessary provisions, three of us went to Bob’s lab in the middle of Friday afternoon only to find him holding a live mouse in his hand. Following some sympathy concerning the welfare and comfort of the poor mouse, Bob responded ‘Margaret, one day, because of this mouse, a woman who now cannot have a baby will be able to have one’. It only took him another 20 years, and each October for the past quarter century, we have watched for his name to appear in the announcements from Stockholm.
My connection with Bob goes back to Edinburgh, over 60 years ago, when I met Ruth Fowler, his wife-to-be. It was Ruth who diverted me from Zoology to Physiology. She asked me to go with her to see Catherine Hebb who was responsible for the small group of non-medics taking the Physiology course. It turned out that Physiology was not to her liking but there had been sufficient genetics in the Zoology course to allow her to make this her Honours subject and to meet Bob. After Ruth and Bob came to Cambridge I was recruited as a pretty regular baby-sitter. I was baby-sitting the day Kennedy was shot and, more memorably, when the announcement of Bob’s successful experiments on in-vitro fertilization brought the unrelenting media to his door (and telephone). I remember the controversies that raged on ethical, medical and religious grounds, much to Bob’s pleasure he has always enjoyed a good scrap. I’ve valued his friendship and feel lucky to have known him since the very beginning of his Nobel Prize-winning work. Tribute to Bob Julio Sirlin New York, USA In lieu of 500 words, I have pleasure to contribute a photo of Bob and myself working together in Edinburgh, Scotland ca. 1957. February 23, 2011
Fig. 1. Yosemite, 7th June, 1958: from left to right, Margaret Pritchard, Ruth Edwards, Huw Pritchard, Bob Edwards.
1472-6483/$ - see front matter © 2011, Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
www.sciencedirect.com www.rbmonline.com
1950s Mouse prophecy
My connection with Bob Edwards
Huw Pritchard Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry, York University, Ontario, Canada
Ann Silver The Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge, UK
My wife, Margaret, and I met Bob and Ruth Edwards at CalTech in 1957 when I was on sabbatical in the Chemistry Department and they held Fellowships in Biology: it happened that we had rented apartments in adjacent old houses at the junction of S Catalina Ave and San Pasqual St, about two minutes’ walk from our laboratories. Some weekends, we would take trips together around Southern California, but being very short of money (although we had decent stipends, the 30% US Witholding Tax for non-citizens was crippling), we went, and slept, in two very old cars at available campgrounds; it was not very comfortable, and Bob sometimes preferred his sleeping bag under the stars. Our longest joint trip was to Yosemite, for which we needed an early start; having assembled all the necessary provisions, three of us went to Bob’s lab in the middle of Friday afternoon only to find him holding a live mouse in his hand. Following some sympathy concerning the welfare and comfort of the poor mouse, Bob responded ‘Margaret, one day, because of this mouse, a woman who now cannot have a baby will be able to have one’. It only took him another 20 years, and each October for the past quarter century, we have watched for his name to appear in the announcements from Stockholm.
My connection with Bob goes back to Edinburgh, over 60 years ago, when I met Ruth Fowler, his wife-to-be. It was Ruth who diverted me from Zoology to Physiology. She asked me to go with her to see Catherine Hebb who was responsible for the small group of non-medics taking the Physiology course. It turned out that Physiology was not to her liking but there had been sufficient genetics in the Zoology course to allow her to make this her Honours subject and to meet Bob. After Ruth and Bob came to Cambridge I was recruited as a pretty regular baby-sitter. I was baby-sitting the day Kennedy was shot and, more memorably, when the announcement of Bob’s successful experiments on in-vitro fertilization brought the unrelenting media to his door (and telephone). I remember the controversies that raged on ethical, medical and religious grounds, much to Bob’s pleasure he has always enjoyed a good scrap. I’ve valued his friendship and feel lucky to have known him since the very beginning of his Nobel Prize-winning work. Tribute to Bob Julio Sirlin New York, USA In lieu of 500 words, I have pleasure to contribute a photo of Bob and myself working together in Edinburgh, Scotland ca. 1957. February 23, 2011
Fig. 1. Yosemite, 7th June, 1958: from left to right, Margaret Pritchard, Ruth Edwards, Huw Pritchard, Bob Edwards.
1472-6483/$ - see front matter © 2011, Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.