Stockholm, Oct 4 (DPA) British researcher Robert Edwards, pioneer of in vitro fertilisation, won this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine, it was announced in Stockholm Monday.
Edwards’ research has ‘made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10 percent of all couples worldwide’, the Nobel Assembly said.
Some four million people have been born thanks to IVF since 1978, when Louise Brown became the first IVF baby, the Nobel Assembly said.
The medicine prize is the first of the 2010 Nobel awards to be announced. The award ceremony is Dec 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. Nobel, inventor of dynamite, endowed the prizes.
