The Modern Papers
The Modern Laboratory · The Modern Papers
The Modern Laboratory
The Modern Papers
Twelve papers that turned a single success into the everyday work of the IVF laboratory.
The Founding Papers tell how IVF began. These twelve take the story on: how eggs came to be collected by sound, how a single sperm was put into an egg, how embryos were fed, frozen, tested, filmed and, in the end, transferred one at a time. Each is shown with the paper itself, what it found, and where to meet the people behind it in the eight rooms of the Modern Laboratory.
MP·01 · 1976
The first sperm injected into an egg
In Hawaii, a needle carried a single sperm into a hamster egg, and the egg answered.
MP·02 · 1981
In Copenhagen, a needle guided by ultrasound reached the follicle without an operation.
MP·03 · 1982
A year of natural cycles brought nothing. Then the Joneses changed the plan, and published every step.
MP·04 · 1985
Rall and Fahy found a way to stop water turning to ice at all. It is now how most eggs and embryos are stored.
MP·05 · 1986
In the first issue of a new European journal, Gardner and Leese measured the appetite of a single mouse embryo without harming it.
MP·06 · 1986
In Vienna, a scanner in the vagina with a needle along its side made egg collection the short procedure it is today.
MP·07 · 1990
In Atlanta, a small opening in the shell helped embryos break free and implant.
MP·08 · 1990
In Chicago, Verlinsky's team tested the chromosomes an egg sets aside, to learn which copy of a gene the egg had kept.
MP·09 · 1997
In Adelaide, a camera watched fifty eggs through the night, and fertilisation turned out to be a sequence of living events.
MP·10 · 1998
Embryos grown to the blastocyst in two simple media implanted twice as often as embryos transferred on day three.
MP·11 · 1999
In Helsinki, transferring one good embryo gave almost the same pregnancy rate as two, without the twins.
MP·12 · 2005
In Tokyo, a drop smaller than a tenth of a microlitre made egg freezing reliable.
About the selection
One or two papers for each room of the Modern Laboratory, chosen as the first report of a method that is still in use. Papers already shown among the Founding Papers, such as the first ICSI pregnancies (FP·12) and the first pregnancies after testing a cell from an embryo (FP·11), are not repeated. Every citation was checked against PubMed on 14 October 2026.
The IVF Museum · The Modern Papers
Compiled with AI-assisted research and checked against the original sources. Undergoing peer review. Corrections are warmly welcomed.
