In the mid-1950s, an unorthodox, secretive professor who taught obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University, Landrum Shettles, launched a project to create an in vitro fertilized human baby. He wanted to cure infertility. Shettles, who had seven children, rarely went home to rest. His lab was furnished with a large, overgrown fish tank and a series of clocks. He slept on a makeshift cot amid the constant ticktocking, and the medical residents would often find him, in his wrinkled green scrubs, wandering the halls late at night.
