Patrick Steptoe
| Patrick Steptoe | |
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| Born | Patrick Christopher Steptoe 9 June 1913 Oxford, England |
| Died | 21 March 1988 (aged 74) Canterbury |
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| Known for | in vitro fertilization |
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Patrick Christopher Steptoe CBE FRS (9 June 1913, Oxford, England – 21 March 1988, Canterbury) was a British obstetrician and gynaecologist and a pioneer of fertility treatment. Steptoe was responsible with biologist and physiologist Robert Edwards for developing in vitro fertilization. Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born on 25 July 1978. Edwards was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the development of in vitro fertilization, however because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously, Steptoe was not eligible for consideration.
Steptoe was educated at The Grammar School, Witney (since 1968 the comprehensive Henry Box School) in Oxfordshire. He went to King's College London and graduated from St George's Hospital Medical School, London in 1939.
After the Second World War, he studied obstetrics and, in 1951 he started to work at the Oldham General Hospital. From Raoul Palmer he learned the technique of laparoscopy and promoted its usefulness. In 1967 he published a book on Laparoscopy in Gynaecology. Subsequently, Robert Edwards, a physiologist from the University of Cambridge, contacted him and got him interested to collaborate in the development of in vitro fertilization.
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