STOCKHOLM – British professor Robert Edwards, this year's winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, will not be able to travel to Stockholm to receive his award because of poor health, organizers said Friday.
The 85-year-old Edwards, professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, won the award for fertility research that led to the first test-tube baby. He started working on IVF in the 1950s.
Edwards had been invited to collect the prize at next week's ceremony in Stockholm with the Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, literature and economics. The prizes are traditionally presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel 1896.
The 10 million kronor ($1.44 million) prize will be picked up by Edward's wife Ruth, Nobel Foundation spokeswoman Jonna Petterson said. She will be accompanied by four of the couple's five daughters and six grandchildren.
No details were given about Edwards' condition.
The foundation said the other nine laureates would attend the Nobel week in the Swedish capital which starts Dec. 6 with a visit to the Nobel museum. The laureates will hold lectures and news conferences before the festivities culminate in the prize ceremony, followed by a banquet at Stockholm City Hall.
The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway, also on Dec. 10.
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