After gaining registration as a nurse, Purdy moved to
Southampton General Hospital. She became homesick and applied for a research post locally to work on
tissue rejection. She later transferred to
Papworth Hospital in
Cambridgeshire where the first
open-heart surgeries (and later,
heart transplants) were pioneered in Britain. In 1968, she took the position of research assistant to the
physiologist Robert Edwards at the
Physiological Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1968, Edwards began to collaborate with
obstetrician and
gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, who had introduced
laparoscopy (a
minimally invasive surgical procedure performed in the
abdomen) for gynaecology in the United Kingdom. This technique was crucial for harvesting
oocytes without the need for major surgery. Purdy began her work with Steptoe and Edwards as a
lab technician, with the aim of developing
in vitro fertilisation (IVF; in which an
egg is combined with
sperm outside the living organism). Purdy systematically recorded the essential details of each case. She also apparently spent more time in at the laboratory in
Oldham than Edwards did, recording the results of
endocrine monitoring, organising laboratory equipment and supplies, and running various tests. Purdy was not involved in laparoscopic
oocyte retrievals or the manipulation of
embryos. Purdy was the only person Edwards allowed in the lab, except for the American scientist
Joseph Schulman. Purdy regularly worked away from home, sometimes managing the lab alone. In 1969 she travelled with Edwards to
California, United States, to carry out research. She played a significant and increasingly vital role, to the extent that, when she took time off to care for her sick mother, work had to pause. Without Purdy’s systematic approach to research, the IVF project may have faltered. During this time the team endured criticism and hostility from the national funding agency
Medical Research Council (MRC), who saw the Cambridge institution’s clinical facilities as problematic. The MRC were antagonised by the applicants' high media profile and viewed IVF as experimental. In February 1971, funding from the MRC was sought but declined. In mid-1974, Edwards became depressed by a lack of progress and funding, as well as the long commute to Oldham. Edwards gave Purdy the choice of giving up the research to work on a unrelated project. According to Purdy's childhood friend Rosemary Carter, Purdy asserted her support for the IVF project and encouraged Edwards to continue their research. It was Purdy who first saw that a fertilised
egg cell was dividing to make new cells. According to Purdy's obituary in
The Times, Purdy was the first person to identify and describe the formation of human
blastocysts.
Louise Joy Brown, the first human born following conception by IVF, was born on 25 July 1978. Brown's birth vindicated the development team and put pressure on the MRC to quickly become a significant backer of the team's research. To train specialists, the team founded the
Bourn Hall Clinic in 1980. The
Bourn Hall property was suggested by Purdy and she played a major role in setting up Bourn Hall's IVF programme. She was formally titled the "technical director". Purdy was a co-author on 26 papers with Steptoe and Edwards, and 370 IVF children were conceived during her career. == Personal life ==