Robert Edwards of Britain, the man credited with developing in-vitro fertilization, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday.
Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, developed IVF along with Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988. Together, they learned how to remove a woman's developing eggs from her ovaries, fertilize them with sperm in a lab and then implant them back into the womb.
Their work led to the birth of the first "test-tube" baby, Louise Brown, who was born in Britain on July 25, 1978, setting off a revolution in fertility treatment.
"Approximately 4 million individuals have been born thanks to IVF," the medicine prize committee in Stockholm said in its citation.
"Today, Robert Edwards' vision is a reality and brings joy to infertile people all over the world."
Edwards was working as a physiologist when he started developing IVF in the 1950s, after other scientists had shown that egg cells from rabbits could be fertilized in cell culture dishes.
It took him time to discover how human eggs and sperm differ from rabbits, so it wasn't until 1969 that Edwards was finally able to fertilize a human egg with sperm in a cell culture dish.
Because that first egg he used was not mature, it failed to divide and develop into a full embryo. So Edwards enlisted the help of gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who devised a way to extract the best, mature eggs from the ovaries.
The pair faced a number of challenges in their work, including opposition from churches and governments, as well as skepticism from scientific colleagues. They also had trouble raising money for their work, and had to rely on privately donated funds.
They began attempting pregnancies with successfully developed embryos in 1972, but several pregnancies ended in miscarriage due to what the team later discovered were flawed hormone treatments.
In 1977, they tried another pregnancy without hormone treatments, relying instead on precise timing of the woman's menstrual cycle. That led to the birth of Louise Brown.
Following that hugely celebrated birth, Steptoe and Edwards founded the first IVF clinic, at Bourn Hall in Cambridge, where they further refined the technology and began sharing it with colleagues around the world.
IVF techniques have been so well fine-tuned in the years since that the probability of an infertile couple taking home a baby after a cycle of IVF today is 1 in 5 -- about the same that healthy couples have of conceiving naturally each month.
In a statement released before the Nobel announcement, Bourn Hall said one of Edwards' proudest moments was discovering that 1,000 IVF babies had been born at the clinic since Louise Brown, and relaying that information to a seriously ill Steptoe, shortly before his death in 1988.
"I'll never forget the look of joy in his eyes," Edwards said.
The statement also noted that Edwards was "not well enough to give interviews." Nobel committee member Goran Hansson told a news conference: "I spoke to his wife, and she was delighted. She was sure he would also be delighted."
The medicine award was the first of the 2010 Nobel Prizes to be announced. It will be followed by physics Tuesday, chemistry Wednesday, literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and economics on Monday Oct. 11.
The prestigious awards were created by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, and first handed out in 1901, five years after his death. Each award includes 10 million Swedish kronor (about US$1.5 million), a diploma and a gold medal.
