1970s

Louise Brown, the world's first test-tube baby (image right).

1972 - CT scans revolutionise the way doctors examine the body

Computed tomography (CT) scanners produce three-dimensional images from a large series of two-dimensional X-rays. The first one is dreamt up in England in 1967 by Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield and becomes a reality in 1972. His concept will go on to win him a Nobel Prize, which he will share with the American Allan McLeod Cormack, who developed the same idea across the Atlantic.

Since that initial invention, CT scanners have developed enormously, but the principle remains the same.

1975 - the morphine-like chemicals in the brain called endorphins are discovered

John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz of Scotland isolate from the brain of a pig what they call enkephalins and will later be termed endorphin from an abbreviation of "endogenous morphine". These are polypeptides (the building blocks of proteins) produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates. They resemble opiates in their ability to relieve pain and give a sense of wellbeing. In other words, they work as natural painkillers.

1978 - the world’s first baby born as a result of in-vitro fertilisation

Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby, is born on July 25 1978. Parents Lesley and John Brown had failed to conceive due to Lesley’s blocked fallopian tubes.

Dr Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist at Oldham General Hospital, and Dr Robert Edwards, a physiologist at Cambridge University developed a new technique to fertilise the egg outside the woman’s body before replacing it in the womb.

More than a million children worldwide will be conceived in this way.

1979 - the first successful bone marrow transplant on a child takes place

Professor Roland Levinsky performs the UK's first successful bone marrow transplant on a child with primary immunodeficiency at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Bone marrow is responsible for creating the body’s immune system.

The Anthony Nolan Trust recruits and manages bone marrow donors for transplants that may be needed because of diseases such as leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or other cancer of the blood.