My first ideas of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) arose with my Ph.D. in Edinburgh University in the early 1950s. Supervised by Alan Beatty, my research was based on his work on altering chromosomal complements in mouse embryos.

We expect in two or three months to do an ultrasound to check the embryos and eggs development. After fertilization we are talking a year for pups to be born and with seven gills there could be 60 or more pups.

The report's evaluation excluded most of the university research and outreach on animal agriculture and all of the university's work on renewable energy.

This research is significant because it suggests that it will be possible to create mouse 'models' of human brain tissue, enabling scientists to try out both stem cell interventions and other potential cures on living human brain cells without having to use humans in the process.

If you are in support of in vitro fertilization, then you have to recognize that human embryos are being created in excess of what can be used safely to reimplant for a pregnancy. So they're going to end up being discarded.

It struck me what we should be trying to do was pluck the egg from the ovary and fertilise it in the laboratory. We could do this in animals increasingly... this was the way to go in the human species.