If you’ve ever heard of in vitro fertilization (the process of moving a fertilized egg outside the body to a mother’s womb), you probably know the names Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe—the doctor and scientist duo credited with the first “test tube baby” live birth. Yet, there was a third professional in the room, one without whom the entire field of reproductive medicine might have stalled before it ever began. Her name was Jean Purdy, and while the men won prizes and entries in history books, she was the one running the lab, managing the data, and making sure the microscopic miracles actually happened (and sometimes providing the calming voice when those two men’s two big personalities came into conflict).
Who Was Jean Purdy? The Woman Behind the Science
Jean Purdy was born in Cambridge in 1945, the second child and only daughter of George and Gladys Purdy and a member in a solidly middle class family. Her father worked as a technician in the University of Cambridge’s Chemistry Department. While he wasn’t a professor, he was immersed in an environment of inquiry and discovery. Maybe that rubbed off on Jean; she was destined to become a key figure in one of the most groundbreaking medical advancements of the 20th century.
At school, Jean was diligent, well-liked, and multi-talented, if quiet. She played violin in the orchestra, joined sports teams, and served as a prefect—a sign that even as a teenager, she had a natural scholarly air about her. Her final school report praised her “pleasant personality and ability to get on with other people,” making it clear that whatever she pursued, she’d do it with warmth and intelligence.
She trained as a nurse at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and later worked at Southampton’s Chest Hospital. Her tenure there ended because she was homesick, so she took the opportunity to move back and take up a position at Papworth Hospital. There she assisted in Britain’s pioneering heart transplant program. In 1968, she made an unexpected pivot in her specialty that would forever change her career trajectory. At just 23 years old, she applied for a research assistant position with Cambridge physiologist Robert Edwards. She had no formal lab experience, but what she lacked in technical training, she made up for in sharpness, adaptability, and an inexhaustible work ethic.
Jean quickly became the nerve center of the IVF project. She managed the lab, meticulously recorded data, prepped culture media (the very liquid that would allow sperm and egg to meet and stay viable outside a living body), and reassured nervous patients. She wasn’t just a partner researcher—she was the kind of person who made people feel at ease. Patients described her as “incredible” at keeping them relaxed during a process that was experimental, stressful, and, more often than not, heartbreaking.
Colleagues noted her wit, her warmth, and her ability to keep spirits high even when the research hit inevitable but disappointing roadblocks. One rumor even suggests that when Edwards nearly gave up on IVF research for a political career, it was Jean who convinced him to stay in the lab. Whether or not that’s true, what’s undeniable is that without her, the first baby born from medically assisted conception might never have been.
The State of Fertility Treatments Before IVF
By the time Jean Purdy joined Robert Edwards in 1968, fertility research was a field riddled with both scientific hurdles and ethical landmines. Doctors had been experimenting with ways to help infertile couples conceive for over a century, but the results were largely inconsistent, controversial, and sometimes downright deceptive.
The first recorded case of artificial insemination took place in 1884, when a Philadelphia doctor secretly inseminated a woman with sperm from a medical student voted “best looking” in his class. Neither she nor her husband were informed until years later, which was ethically questionable at best and manipulative and unscrupulous at worst. Throughout the early 20th century, researchers explored the role of hormones in fertility, and by the 1950s, scientists had begun experimenting with fertilizing human eggs outside the body. But the path to IVF was anything but a straightforward ride.
In 1965, Baltimore doctor Howard Jones worked with Robert Edwards to fertilize a human egg in vitro for the first time. By 1968, Edwards had teamed up with Patrick Steptoe in England to refine laparoscopic techniques for retrieving eggs, leading to the first documented fertilization of a human egg outside the body. However, their success only led them to discover the next seemingly insurmountable hurdle in the IVF process. They couldn’t get an embryo to implant. Seven long years later, when they finally achieved pregnancy, it ended in an ectopic implantation—a devastating failure that almost derailed the project entirely.
Meanwhile, fertility treatments outside of IVF were making modest progress; modest but necessary. Doctors had discovered that a regular menstrual cycle was a good predictor of ovulation, leading to the development of Clomid, a drug still used today to stimulate egg production. However, inconsistent release of eggs wasn’t the only reason for couples to struggle to conceive. Women with blocked fallopian tubes—like Lesley Brown, the future mother of the first IVF baby—were stuck with no real options.
When Edwards, Steptoe, and Purdy finally succeeded in achieving a full-term IVF pregnancy in 1978, the world reacted with a mix of awe, relief, and full-blown panic. Religious leaders condemned the procedure as outside of the Holy law, governments debated banning it, and some medical professionals dismissed it as a bizarre experiment that would never be accepted by the masses as a legitimate way to expand families.
What they didn’t know was that the success of IVF was just the beginning—and Jean Purdy was at the center of it all. They also didn’t know yet just how many people experienced the heartache of wanting children that, without IVF, they would never have, and how willing those people were to try just about anything, no matter the opprobrium cast their way, to get them.
The Death and Memorial of Jean Purdy
Tragically, Jean Purdy never lived to see the full impact of her work. She died on March 16, 1985, before her 40th birthday from malignant melanoma, a cruel and premature end for a woman who had helped bring over 500 IVF babies into the world. As her health declined, she remained dedicated to her work, with a special room arranged for her at Bourn Hall—the world’s first IVF clinic, which she played a pivotal role in establishing—so she could still be part of the team.
Despite her central role in the success of IVF, Purdy’s contributions were largely overlooked for decades. While her colleagues, Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, were publicly celebrated, she was often left out of the historical record. Even Edwards himself, on the 20th anniversary of that first live birth made possible from IVF, felt the need to set the record straight. He said frankly, “There were three original pioneers in IVF, not just two.”
Purdy was laid to rest in Grantchester churchyard, near Cambridge, beside her mother and grandmother. For years, her grave bore no mention of her groundbreaking work. It wasn’t until 2018—more than three decades after her passing—that she received the recognition that had been curiously withheld.
That year, Louise Brown herself, the world’s first IVF baby, unveiled a new headstone honoring Purdy’s role in assisted conception’s development. Brown spoke about how her mother had always regarded Purdy as an “unsung hero,” someone whose kindness and determination had helped make having a child despite her condition a reality.
Mrs. Brown wasn’t the only one who remembered her that way. Grace Macdonald, mother of Alastair Macdonald—the first IVF baby boy—recalled how Purdy had been a source of constant support. In a graveside testament, Grace shared that she felt she had a special connection to Jean, who encouraged her and helped her stay hopeful during the long IVF process.
In addition to her memorial in Grantchester, Purdy’s legacy has been further honored with a blue plaque installed at the site in Greater Manchester where she, Edwards, and Steptoe had their first lab space. The Society of Biology placed the plaque at Dr. Kershaw’s Hospice in Oldham to memorialize where their groundbreaking work took place decades before.
Purdy’s contributions extended far beyond her presence in the lab. She co-authored 26 academic papers on IVF between 1970 and 1985 (that’s right, 26 papers in the span of only 15 years), and she was the first person in the world to recognize and describe the formation of the early human blastocyst—a key moment in embryonic development that laid the foundation for future advancements in reproductive medicine.
Though history may have taken its time in acknowledging Jean Purdy’s vital role in IVF, the millions of families made possible by her work are a lasting testament to her brilliance, perseverance, and compassion. And everyday there are more—around half a million babies each year come to be because of assisted reproductive technologies.
How Jean Paved the Way
When Jean Purdy first used a microscope and realized she was watching the formation of the human blastocyst, she likely could not have imagined the world she was helping to create. Blastocysts are the step after the single-celled zygote that comes to be when sperm meets egg.
Today, more than eight million babies have been born through in vitro fertilization (IVF), a treatment that has transformed countless lives. What started as a groundbreaking, yet controversial, experiment in the 1970s is now a well-established medical technology offered in fertility clinics and paid for by insurance or countries themselves around the world. France and Belgium lead the way in this regard, footing the bill for four to six cycles of IVF per attempted pregnancy.
IVF didn’t just change the way families are formed and countries are populated—it also reshaped laws, ethics, and medical education itself. In the early days, there were no legal or ethical guidelines for assisted reproductive technologies, and many viewed IVF as a sort of clinical wild west. Some religious groups opposed it, and even the British medical establishment was aloof, waiting to see if the tide of popular opinion would turn. The National Health Service (NHS) refused to fund IVF treatments in the beginning, forcing Purdy and her colleagues to establish Bourn Hall, the world’s first fertility clinic, in 1980. Today, Bourn Hall is one of over 3,000 fertility clinics worldwide, and the UK’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) regulates assisted reproductive technologies to ensure the ethical and lawful treatment of patients.
Despite Purdy’s role in discovery and experimentation, she was first and foremost a nurse. She helped set the standards for what it meant to be a fertility nurse, paving the way for others to enter the field—including Muriel Harris, a powerhouse in her own right. As superintendent of two large hospital campuses, Harris played a pivotal role in the early IVF trials. She arranged for her staff to assist with egg retrieval procedures and even organized a team of volunteer nurses to support the research. When essential medical equipment was needed, she was often the one to procure it.
Like Purdy, Harris wasn’t content to stop at one groundbreaking achievement. She was one of the first nurses who stepped up to help establish Bourn Hall, and then she took to the skies—literally—earning her private pilot’s license and continuing to fly planes until she was 80 years old. She, unlike Jean, would have years to discover just how much their initial work in the field of IVF mattered.
Thanks to pioneers like Purdy and Harris, fertility nursing has become a specialized field with thousands of educated and caring professionals worldwide. Modern fertility nurses do far more than assist in medical procedures—they are the guiding hands and steady voices for both women and couples navigating one of the most emotionally charged medical journeys. Their main responsibilities include: monitoring patients’ treatment cycles; answering questions and providing emotional support; setting up treatment protocols; coordinating care between doctors, lab technicians, and patients; and assisting with medication approvals and insurance coverage. In short, they are the active lifeblood of IVF clinics, helping to make what once seemed impossible a reality for families across the globe.
Jean Purdy may not have lived to see the full impact of her work, but her influence is there in the everyday acts of specialty nurses. The field she helped establish now supports hundreds of thousands of families each year, with laws, clinics, and medical professionals dedicated to making IVF more accessible and successful.
The best tribute to Jean Purdy isn’t in memorial plaques or headstones—though she certainly earned those honors—it is in the millions of children who exist because of her work, the families that IVF made possible, and the generations of fertility nurses who now walk the path she laid brick by stubborn brick.
