Advancing Robert Edwards' Legacy:Pioneering the Future of Fertility Through Automation
IVF pioneer Robert Edwards won the Nobel Prize for developing the techniques that made human IVF possible. By automating the IVF lab, we take the next giant step in scaling his legacy to meet global fertility needs.
Robert Edwards holding first IVF baby, Louise Brown.
In 2010, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to a scientist whose work forever changed the landscape of reproductive health: Robert Edwards, co-creator of in vitro fertilization (IVF) with physician Dr. Patrick Steptoe (with critical clinical support and technical direction from nurse and embryologist Jane Purdy who co-authored 26 papers with Edwards and Steptoe).
But one fact about this achievement is often obscured—Edwards was not a medical doctor. He was a physiologist. A lab expert.
The Nobel Committee honored him for the "development of a milestone in modern medicine." But that milestone was not forged in a hospital room—it was born in the lab. Edwards' brilliance lay in creating the techniques that could coax a human egg into becoming an embryo outside the body, laying the foundation for modern embryology and the first IVF birth.
The revolutionary nature of their work was perhaps best captured by biochemist Joseph Goldstein, who noted when presenting the Lasker Award to Edwards in 2001: “We know that I.V.F. was a great leap because Edwards and Steptoe were immediately attacked by an unlikely trinity—the press, the pope, and prominent Nobel laureates.”
This lab-centric origin of IVF isn’t just a footnote in history—it’s a compass for where the field must go next.
IVF: A Lab-Centric Breakthrough with Global Implications
While IVF has become more commonplace in many parts of the world, access remains highly limited. It’s estimated that only 5% of the world’s infertile population currently has access to IVF treatment. In most regions, the barriers are structural: the need for highly trained specialists, costly infrastructure, and labor-intensive manual processes that make it difficult to scale care equitably.
And yet, as our late Co-Founder & CEO of Conceivable Life Sciences, Joshua Abrams, pointed out:
“The true magic of IVF happens in the lab.”
The lab is where the alchemy of embryology occurs. It’s where skilled professionals follow the fundamental methods of fertilization, embryo culture, and transfer that Edwards pioneered.
And now, it’s the lab that must evolve again—this time to reach more people, in more places, with more consistency.
From Pioneering Technologies to Scalable Solutions
Perhaps the most powerful tribute to Edwards' legacy is to reinvent today’s IVF lab. That reinvention is happening through automation, with the development of AURA, Conceivable’s world’s first end-to-end AI-powered, automated IVF lab.
Rather than relying on manual, variable processes, AURA standardizes the vast majority of steps in the IVF lab using industry leading robotics, and advanced optics, AI and machine vision, as well as an integrated software platform for precision data collection. AURA doesn’t change the fundamental biological processes of IVF—it enhances and standardizes them. Just as Edwards once did, we’re using scientific and medical knowledge, then pairing it with technology to expand what’s possible in embryology.
What Automation Makes Possible
AURA is designed to improve the consistency of IVF and perform the more than 200 steps traditionally performed by embryologists and lab technicians to support embryologists. The AURA platform requires a skilled team of three (a senior embryologist, lab technician, and engineer) to operate, bringing together human insight and technological precision.
Why This Matters: Expanding Access to IVF
The IVF lab, as it exists today is a bottleneck. Training new embryologists takes years. Expanding infrastructure is costly. And high variability in lab procedures can affect outcomes. This makes scaling nearly impossible in low-resource settings or for underserved populations.
But by automating and standardizing critical lab processes, we can help partners lower the cost of IVF delivery, reduce the impact of technician variability, expand access to regions without high-density fertility specialists, and ensure consistent care quality regardless of geography.
Through automation of the IVF lab, we extend the legacy of Robert Edwards—not just in honoring his scientific innovation, but by expanding its reach.
The Lab Leader
It’s worth revisiting Edwards’ own belief that the lab will always rule in terms of leadership in IVF.
This was not hubris—it was vision. Edwards understood that the lab was the epicenter of IVF’s power. And while clinicians are vital to patient care, it is in the lab where infertility is most directly addressed.
Automation allows us to scale that vision. It empowers IVF labs to meet the rising global demand for fertility care—while maintaining the same rigorous scientific standards that earned Edwards his Nobel Prize.
Standing on the Shoulders of Pioneers
IVF began as a triumph of laboratory science. Today, its future depends on the same spirit of innovation that sparked its origins. With automation, we are advancing the path paved by Edwards and continuing it with purpose and precision.
For the millions still waiting for a chance to build their families, the automation of the IVF lab is a “great leap” toward achieving their dream of parenthood.