Since ancient times, humans, as viviparous animals, have always reproduced through sexual intercourse, with male sperm and female eggs combining in the mother's body to form a fertilized egg, after which the embryo develops in the womb for ten months before being delivered at birth, welcoming a new life. However, when the clock of history pointed to November 10, 1977, a new era of human reproduction began. At Oldham General Hospital on the outskirts of Manchester, England, gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and Cambridge physiologist Robert Edwards were performing surgery on 30-year-old Leslie Brown to retrieve her eggs. After successfully retrieving the eggs, they immediately placed them in a prepared test tube, then added the processed sperm from Leslie's husband to the same test tube. In the test tube, the sperm and eggs combined to form a fertilized egg, which began dividing in a special nutrient solution at body temperature, splitting into two, four, and eight cells. Just as the embryo divided into eight cells, the doctors immediately transplanted the tiny embryo into Leslie Brown's uterus, where the embryo successfully implanted (attached) and completed its development without any complications. At 11:47 PM on July 25, 1978, a baby girl's cry rang out in the delivery room of Oldham General Hospital, piercing the night sky and shocking the world. The 2.6-kilogram baby girl, delivered by Cesarean section, became the world's first "test-tube baby".
Leslie Brown, who was unable to conceive normally due to blocked fallopian tubes, and her husband, a train driver, were overjoyed to see their daughter so healthy and lively. Their daughter, Louise Brown, instantly became a global sensation. However, many people worried whether the first test-tube baby might be a "scientific monster". As seasons came and went, Louise Brown grew up with a normal childhood and cheerful personality, and her health was no different from that of her peers. Over the past decade, test-tube babies have gradually been accepted by people. Many families unable to conceive their own children due to blocked fallopian tubes have sought help from local medical institutions and asked doctors to give them a test-tube baby, sparking a worldwide boom in test-tube baby research.
In 2006, Louise Brown got married and had children. To date, the number of test-tube babies worldwide has reached 5 million. Göran Hansson, Secretary-General of the Nobel Prize Committee, announced in the "Nobel Hall" of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine would be awarded to British physiologist Robert Edwards for his pioneering achievements in the field of in vitro fertilization technology.