Breakthrough Babies

An account from the frontline of fertility treatment, giving a unique insight into not only the medical and scientific advances involved but the human cost and rewards behind this life-changing technology.

Simon Fishel worked with Robert Edwards during his pioneering early IVF research and was part of the team in the world’s first IVF clinic, with all the trials and tribulations that involved at the time, including a writ for murder!

As the science developed over the decades so did his career, as he sought to do more for patients and taught the new technologies to doctors all over the world. He came up against regulatory and establishment barriers, including fighting a 3-year legal case in the High Court of Justice and a death threat from a doctor if he refused to work with him.

The clinic he founded has grown into the largest IVF group in the UK, developing exciting new procedures, and he has helped establish clinics throughout the world, even being invited to introduce IVF to China.

Foreword by award-winning medical journalist Jenny Hope, with a special note by the world's first 'test tube' baby, Louise Brown.

'Fishel’s driving force has always been to ‘work at the limits of what’s possible’... [pushing] the cutting edge of IVF treatment to the maximum for people who had run out of hope. His rollercoaster ride through forty years of scientific advances provides a microcosm of a revolution in human conception taking place in laboratories, hospitals, and universities around the world. Yet at the same time he was battling demons that could have taken him down, from the threat of bankruptcy to having a gun held to his head by a maverick colleague, with a resilience that is genuinely admirable.' - Jenny Hope, medical journalist (from the Foreword)