Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Sciences
Professor Martin Johnson is an Adviser to the Progress Educational Trust (PET), and Emeritus Professor of Reproductive Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He and Professor Sir Richard Gardner were the first graduate students of the IVF pioneer Professor Sir Robert Edwards, and he delivered the Nobel Lecture on the occasion of Professor Edwards being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Working with Dr Kay Elder, he has published studies of the Oldham Notebooks kept by the pioneers of IVF during the 1960s and 1970s.
Grace MacDonald – mother of Alastair MacDonald, the world's second IVF baby – tells her story to Professor Martin Johnson and Dr Kay Elder, sharing memories of the pioneers of IVF and of the equally pioneering patients...
Robert Geoffrey Edwards, or 'Bob' as his colleagues and friends knew him, is one of the true giants of the 20th century...
Professor Robert Edwards was last week awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on IVF [1]. Bob might seem an obvious award candidate since IVF and related treatments are taken for granted nowadays. Most of us know family, friends and/or colleagues who have used IVF, PGD, surrogacy or gamete donation. During the lonely days of the 1960s and 70s, the situation was very different...
In 1971, reproductive biologist Dr Robert Edwards and gynaecologist Mr Patrick Steptoe applied to the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) requesting funding for research into human in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer. Their application was rejected...
Progress (now the Progress Educational Trust) was formed in 1985. Its 10th anniversary was marked at a meeting at the Royal Society of Medicine, when I was kindly invited to give a lecture (1) entitled 'Looking Forward, Looking Back'. Between 1985 and 1995, I personally had moved from being an...
In February this year, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (1) published a discussion paper entitled: 'Human Embryo - A biological definition'. This publication provides an authoritative and comprehensive summary of the scientific arguments and experiments that bear on our understanding of what a human embryo is and is...
In their commentary article 'Recruiting egg donors after the removal of anonymity', (BioNews 299, 14/3/05), Alan Thornhill and Ian Craft of the London Fertility Centre lament the fact that the Department of Health (after wide consultation) abolished donor anonymity before addressing the issue of allowable expenses. Their memories...
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