Anne McLaren

Dame Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren, (26 April 1927 – 7 July 2007) was a British scientist who was a leading figure in developmental biology. Her work helped lead to human in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and she received many honours for her contributions to science, including election as fellow of the Royal Society. Early life McLaren was the daughter of Sir Henry McLaren, 2nd Baron Aberconway, a former Liberal MP, and Christabel Mary Melville MacNaghten. She was born in London and lived there until the outbreak of World War II, when her family moved to their estate at Bodnant, North Wales. As a child she appeared in the film version of H.G. Wells' novel Things to Come, released in 1936. She was entitled to be referred to as "The Honourable Anne McLaren". She read zoology at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, later gaining an MA. Researching mite infestation of Drosophila under J.B.S. Haldane, she continued her post-graduate studies at University College London from 1949, first under Peter Medawar on the genetics of rabbits and then on neurotropic murine viruses under Kingsley Sanders. She obtained her DPhil in 1952 and married fellow student Dr Donald Michie on 6 October 1952. Early career and married life As a couple, McLaren and Donald Michie worked together at University College London from 1952 to 1955, and afterwards at the Royal Veterinary College, on the variation in the number of lumbar vertebrae in mice as a function of maternal environment. McLaren would later take up research on fertility in mice, including superovulation and superpregnancy. In 1958, she published a landmark Nature paper with John D. Biggers reporting the first successful development and birth of mice embryos that were first recovered from naturally fertilized females at the 8–16 cells stage, then cultured in vitro for two days until the blastocyst stage, and finally transferred back to females' uterus until birth. This paper entitled "Successful Development and Birth of Mice cultivated in vitro as Early Embryos" has been called "one of the most significant papers in the history of reproductive biology and medicine".