The initiative has been warmly welcomed by Mike Macnamee, chief executive of Bourn Hall Clinic - based near Cambridge - which was established by IVF pioneers PatrickSteptoe and Robert Edwards.
"Bob Edwards is one of our greatest scientists, " said Mike Macnamee, chief executive of Bourn Hall, the IVF clinic founded by Prof Edwards with his fellow IVF pioneer PatrickSteptoe, a gynaecological surgeon.
Working in close collaboration with gynecologist PatrickSteptoe, who died in 1988, Dr. Edwards overcame entrenched political and religious hostility, as well as the disapproval of many other scientists at the time, to pioneer the basic techniques of human embryology that led to the birth of the first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in 1978.