The first so-called test-tube baby, Louise Brown, whom he helped bring into the world, was born in 1978.

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Twenty one years ago such questions were asked after the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby.

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She blocked a man's legal battle to see a test-tube baby daughter, who was conceived after his relationship with the mother broke up.

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Dr. Edwards and Dr. Steptoe worked with no public funding or direct research support at a time when the concept of a test-tube baby seemed the stuff of Orwellian science fiction.

WSJ: Test-Tube Baby Pioneer Robert Edwards Wins Nobel Prize for Medicine

Our son got a big cool room, and our daughter got a slightly smaller room because she was a test-tube baby so we had spent part of her budget just getting her born.

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Working in close collaboration with gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988, Dr. Edwards overcame entrenched political and religious hostility, as well as the disapproval of many other scientists at the time, to pioneer the basic techniques of human embryology that led to the birth of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978.

WSJ: Test-Tube Baby Pioneer Robert Edwards Wins Nobel Prize for Medicine