Who pioneered in vitro fertilization. Steptoe, together with biologist Robert Edwards, was the first to succeed in implanting in the womb an egg fertilized outside the body. The first "test-tube baby" was born in 1978. Steptoe developed laparoscopy for exploring the interior of the abdomen without a major operation. Steptoe was educated at King's College and St George's Hospital Medical School, London. He worked at Oldham General Hospital 1951-78, and from 1969 was director of the Centre for Human Reproduction. In 1968 Edwards and Steptoe began to collaborate on the fertilization of human eggs. Steptoe treated volunteer patients with a fertility drug to stimulate maturation of the eggs in the ovary. In 1971, Edwards and Steptoe were ready to introduce an eight-celled embryo into the uterus of a volunteer patient who hoped to become pregnant, but their attempts were unsuccessful. In 1977 it was decided to abandon the use of the fertility drug and remove the egg at precisely the right natural stage of maturity; once fertilized, the egg was reimplanted in the mother two days later. This pregnancy came to term and the baby was delivered by Caesarean section.
