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Tribute to Professor Robert Edwards
Reproductive BioMedicine Online, 23 Special Issue 1 (2011) 85 92
www.sciencedirect.com www.rbmonline.com
2000 present A modest tribute to Professor Edwards Rita Basuray, PhD, HCLD University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA My tribute to Professor Edwards started in 2008, after he graciously spent an afternoon with me showing with such fondness, the many trees he planted close to Duck End Farm, his home as well as the birthplace of RBMOnline. Because we moved to Lexington where my IVF lab-work wasn’t possible, I applied for a Cancer Research Support position in mid-2008, switching professions from one end of the life spectrum to another. It felt fitting to end my handson IVF journey with the pivotal person whose dedicated quest to find answers to barriers to fertilization launched my career of directing IVF labs from 1983. How can I thank the person whose dedication not only led to many IVF babies being born from our clinic, but also led to many memorable moments like my dancing at my first IVF ‘baby’s’ wedding or sharing insightful discussions over dinner with my second a thoughtful young man who spends his spare time helping others in need. These events are a reflection of the farreaching effects of what Drs Edwards and Steptoe started.
Fig. 2. Bob on the perimeter of his tree plantation at Duck End Farm, 2008.
I am very grateful and would like to share a passage from the letter I wrote to Professor Edwards after returning from the UK. “As promised, I took more than 100 pictures of your beautiful trees and I used most of the pictures to create this slide show. The second picture in the slide-set shows two trees and remarkably, one looks like a hand. I felt that this picture depicts your loving hands that planted so many children in couples who so craved children, planted the seeds of a new field of ART in our minds to allow us to have careers and also planted these wonderful trees. Thank you!” Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I include in this tribute two pictures I took that summer afternoon with the hope that the direction in which Professor Edwards has pointed us leads to many branches of discoveries that extinguish the scourge of infertility. Tribute to Professor Robert Edwards Irene Boiso Centro de Reproducci´ on Asistida, Clínica Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Fig. 1. Bob walking towards his tree plantation at Duck End Farm, 2008.
I was a young biology student in 1978, when Louise Brown was born. I had just moved to Venezuela with my family from our native Argentina, and still remember vividly the commotion that the release of this news caused at my University. Fascinated, I would devour every press piece that fell into my hands on the subject. There was no internet back then, so information was scarce. In my young
1472-6483/$ - see front matter © 2011, Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
86 mind, IVF was almost like science fiction, and something that only could happen in far-away developed countries. About 8 years later, having graduated in Cellular Biology, I was working in a lab for a clinic doing sperm analysis and preparation for insemination, when the possibility of opening an IVF lab in our clinic arose. And there I was, first in line. Back then, there was no formal training in IVF in Latin America, so after a short training in Colombia I began reading publications on IVF on my own. That is when I realized the actual extent of Dr Edwards’ work and achievement; and the magnitude of his vision. From that moment on he became a reference figure for me. In 1993 I was granted a scholarship from the Spanish Government to do my PhD and moved to Barcelona, Spain. Under the guidance of Dr Anna Veiga I had the opportunity to meet many renowned scientists. I put faces to the names of those whose works I had been reading for many years, like Santi Munn´ e who in 2001 contacted me, asking me if I would be interested in writing an article in collaboration with Dr Edwards. He was seeking a young scientist fluent in Spanish, who could write the article in English and then translate to Spanish to be published as part of a book edited by Professor Edwards and Francisco Rísquez, entitled: “Reproducci´ on Asistida Moderna’. I was thrilled, and of course immediately said yes. In his first e-mail Dr Edwards suggested very broadly the area to cover, and said that he ‘expected my input’. My input? He expected my input? I began to wonder if I hadn’t put myself in a very compromising situation. We began exchanging e-mails, and the article started to take shape. That year Alpha’s Third Biennial Conference was to be held in New York City. Dr Edwards was one of the guest speakers and I was to present an oral communication. The deadline for the submission of the first draft of the article had already passed, so I wrote him apologizing; and told him that it would be a great pleasure to meet him in person at the conference. At the opening reception, I approached him, and in my clumsy English I shyly introduced myself. I remember how accessible and unpretentious he was. Yes, he replied smiling, of course he knew who I was, and warmly joked and scolded me for my delay on the delivery of the draft. I assured him that I would send it over as soon as I returned from New York. We crossed many times over those days, but the events that followed did not allow me to say goodbye. I was never able to present my oral update, which was scheduled for Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The conference was abruptly cut short and US airspace was closed. I learned later that he was all right and had left the country by car, presumably through the Canadian border. Back in Barcelona, I completed the rough version of the article and he returned it with some corrections and mentioned that he had decided to publish it in English in RBMOnline. That is how ‘Fundamentals of human embryonic growth in vitro and the selection of high-quality embryos for transfer’ was conceived and published first in English, in Volume 5, 2002. I treasure this experience as one of the important achievements in my life and am grateful for having had the chance of meeting briefly a person of such human dimension. Congratulations on a very well deserved and long overdue recognition to your pioneering work Professor Edwards!
Bob Edwards Nobel Laureate Tender human mind Dr Chinmoy K Bose MD, PhD Consultant, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute, Kolkata, India I got an invitation to write about Bob in this special issue. I was addressed as a ‘friend of Reproductive BioMedicine Online’ by the editorial Board. I was overjoyed. I remember he was 74 when he started this Journal in 2000 with a cause. ‘An impossibly hard act to follow’ was an apt definition by many of editors of ESHRE. He wanted to secure a strong position for scientists and clinicians in publishing houses allowing them to organize their own publishing matter. His dream was to free the journal from financial and other constraints imposed by publishing through a publishing house. Concentrating more in RBMOnline Bob wrote 61 articles over 2002 to 2009 for it. He almost stopped writing in other journals including Nature after 2001. He wrote 21 articles in Nature from 1954 to 2001. He had an absolute dedication to his work. Tenacity in achieving a goal, vision, innovation and a very strong leading ability made this man great. Inside this strong personality there lived an understanding, sympathetic and tender human mind that cared for every sufferer. Once he expressed grief for a childless couple, who were his friends. He wrote ‘The trees bore fruit, the clouds carried rain, and our friends, forever childless, played with our [girls].’ I myself felt this sympathy and affection in my correspondence with him. I wrote a review on hormone and ovarian cancer and a commentary on the mechanism of high FSHR expression through NGF pathway with central control. I accidentally came across RBMOnline in PubMed and liked their web page which was very different from the drab websites of other established journals of high impact. Beautiful pink ellipsoid remnant in their current web is reminiscent of that easy innovativeness. I sent those papers to RBMOnline. I realized that he went through my review and commentary to the minutest details. He was so kind. He liked those and even suggested a few references before publication in 2005. My career could see a lease of life again. The affection and fatherly attitude he showed to some unknown Indian were unique. I feel tears of joy whenever I remember it. Not too long after this RBMOnline received a very high impact factor. But that’s a different story. Robert Edwards receiving his Honorary Doctorate from the University of Huddersfield Professor Bob Cryan Vice-chancellor, University of Huddersfield I was honoured to be asked to contribute my recollections of Bob Edwards. Of course my first reaction is to record my great respect for his achievements. But in the context of this innovative and influential journal I hardly need to spell out the significance of his work. What I can talk about, however, is the significance of the fact that he was born in Batley. My colleague Eric Blyth, who is Professor of Social Work at the University of Huddersfield and a contributor to this journal, has had a long engagement with the work of Steptoe and Edwards, from a social sciences
www.sciencedirect.com www.rbmonline.com
2000 present A modest tribute to Professor Edwards Rita Basuray, PhD, HCLD University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA My tribute to Professor Edwards started in 2008, after he graciously spent an afternoon with me showing with such fondness, the many trees he planted close to Duck End Farm, his home as well as the birthplace of RBMOnline. Because we moved to Lexington where my IVF lab-work wasn’t possible, I applied for a Cancer Research Support position in mid-2008, switching professions from one end of the life spectrum to another. It felt fitting to end my handson IVF journey with the pivotal person whose dedicated quest to find answers to barriers to fertilization launched my career of directing IVF labs from 1983. How can I thank the person whose dedication not only led to many IVF babies being born from our clinic, but also led to many memorable moments like my dancing at my first IVF ‘baby’s’ wedding or sharing insightful discussions over dinner with my second a thoughtful young man who spends his spare time helping others in need. These events are a reflection of the farreaching effects of what Drs Edwards and Steptoe started.
Fig. 2. Bob on the perimeter of his tree plantation at Duck End Farm, 2008.
I am very grateful and would like to share a passage from the letter I wrote to Professor Edwards after returning from the UK. “As promised, I took more than 100 pictures of your beautiful trees and I used most of the pictures to create this slide show. The second picture in the slide-set shows two trees and remarkably, one looks like a hand. I felt that this picture depicts your loving hands that planted so many children in couples who so craved children, planted the seeds of a new field of ART in our minds to allow us to have careers and also planted these wonderful trees. Thank you!” Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I include in this tribute two pictures I took that summer afternoon with the hope that the direction in which Professor Edwards has pointed us leads to many branches of discoveries that extinguish the scourge of infertility. Tribute to Professor Robert Edwards Irene Boiso Centro de Reproducci´ on Asistida, Clínica Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
Fig. 1. Bob walking towards his tree plantation at Duck End Farm, 2008.
I was a young biology student in 1978, when Louise Brown was born. I had just moved to Venezuela with my family from our native Argentina, and still remember vividly the commotion that the release of this news caused at my University. Fascinated, I would devour every press piece that fell into my hands on the subject. There was no internet back then, so information was scarce. In my young
1472-6483/$ - see front matter © 2011, Reproductive Healthcare Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
86 mind, IVF was almost like science fiction, and something that only could happen in far-away developed countries. About 8 years later, having graduated in Cellular Biology, I was working in a lab for a clinic doing sperm analysis and preparation for insemination, when the possibility of opening an IVF lab in our clinic arose. And there I was, first in line. Back then, there was no formal training in IVF in Latin America, so after a short training in Colombia I began reading publications on IVF on my own. That is when I realized the actual extent of Dr Edwards’ work and achievement; and the magnitude of his vision. From that moment on he became a reference figure for me. In 1993 I was granted a scholarship from the Spanish Government to do my PhD and moved to Barcelona, Spain. Under the guidance of Dr Anna Veiga I had the opportunity to meet many renowned scientists. I put faces to the names of those whose works I had been reading for many years, like Santi Munn´ e who in 2001 contacted me, asking me if I would be interested in writing an article in collaboration with Dr Edwards. He was seeking a young scientist fluent in Spanish, who could write the article in English and then translate to Spanish to be published as part of a book edited by Professor Edwards and Francisco Rísquez, entitled: “Reproducci´ on Asistida Moderna’. I was thrilled, and of course immediately said yes. In his first e-mail Dr Edwards suggested very broadly the area to cover, and said that he ‘expected my input’. My input? He expected my input? I began to wonder if I hadn’t put myself in a very compromising situation. We began exchanging e-mails, and the article started to take shape. That year Alpha’s Third Biennial Conference was to be held in New York City. Dr Edwards was one of the guest speakers and I was to present an oral communication. The deadline for the submission of the first draft of the article had already passed, so I wrote him apologizing; and told him that it would be a great pleasure to meet him in person at the conference. At the opening reception, I approached him, and in my clumsy English I shyly introduced myself. I remember how accessible and unpretentious he was. Yes, he replied smiling, of course he knew who I was, and warmly joked and scolded me for my delay on the delivery of the draft. I assured him that I would send it over as soon as I returned from New York. We crossed many times over those days, but the events that followed did not allow me to say goodbye. I was never able to present my oral update, which was scheduled for Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The conference was abruptly cut short and US airspace was closed. I learned later that he was all right and had left the country by car, presumably through the Canadian border. Back in Barcelona, I completed the rough version of the article and he returned it with some corrections and mentioned that he had decided to publish it in English in RBMOnline. That is how ‘Fundamentals of human embryonic growth in vitro and the selection of high-quality embryos for transfer’ was conceived and published first in English, in Volume 5, 2002. I treasure this experience as one of the important achievements in my life and am grateful for having had the chance of meeting briefly a person of such human dimension. Congratulations on a very well deserved and long overdue recognition to your pioneering work Professor Edwards!
Bob Edwards Nobel Laureate Tender human mind Dr Chinmoy K Bose MD, PhD Consultant, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute, Kolkata, India I got an invitation to write about Bob in this special issue. I was addressed as a ‘friend of Reproductive BioMedicine Online’ by the editorial Board. I was overjoyed. I remember he was 74 when he started this Journal in 2000 with a cause. ‘An impossibly hard act to follow’ was an apt definition by many of editors of ESHRE. He wanted to secure a strong position for scientists and clinicians in publishing houses allowing them to organize their own publishing matter. His dream was to free the journal from financial and other constraints imposed by publishing through a publishing house. Concentrating more in RBMOnline Bob wrote 61 articles over 2002 to 2009 for it. He almost stopped writing in other journals including Nature after 2001. He wrote 21 articles in Nature from 1954 to 2001. He had an absolute dedication to his work. Tenacity in achieving a goal, vision, innovation and a very strong leading ability made this man great. Inside this strong personality there lived an understanding, sympathetic and tender human mind that cared for every sufferer. Once he expressed grief for a childless couple, who were his friends. He wrote ‘The trees bore fruit, the clouds carried rain, and our friends, forever childless, played with our [girls].’ I myself felt this sympathy and affection in my correspondence with him. I wrote a review on hormone and ovarian cancer and a commentary on the mechanism of high FSHR expression through NGF pathway with central control. I accidentally came across RBMOnline in PubMed and liked their web page which was very different from the drab websites of other established journals of high impact. Beautiful pink ellipsoid remnant in their current web is reminiscent of that easy innovativeness. I sent those papers to RBMOnline. I realized that he went through my review and commentary to the minutest details. He was so kind. He liked those and even suggested a few references before publication in 2005. My career could see a lease of life again. The affection and fatherly attitude he showed to some unknown Indian were unique. I feel tears of joy whenever I remember it. Not too long after this RBMOnline received a very high impact factor. But that’s a different story. Robert Edwards receiving his Honorary Doctorate from the University of Huddersfield Professor Bob Cryan Vice-chancellor, University of Huddersfield I was honoured to be asked to contribute my recollections of Bob Edwards. Of course my first reaction is to record my great respect for his achievements. But in the context of this innovative and influential journal I hardly need to spell out the significance of his work. What I can talk about, however, is the significance of the fact that he was born in Batley. My colleague Eric Blyth, who is Professor of Social Work at the University of Huddersfield and a contributor to this journal, has had a long engagement with the work of Steptoe and Edwards, from a social sciences