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On April 26, the “Doodle” on Google’s homepage celebrated the scientific impact of reproductive biologist and �������� alumna Anne McLaren. McLaren, who would have turned 94 this year, was a faculty member and scientific course consultant for the former �������� Microbiology course in 1984. She also received the first Pioneer Award in 1998 from the Frontiers in Reproduction (FIR) course — an award given out annually since. 

Today’s Doodle celebrates the 94th birthday of British scientist and author Anne McLaren, who is widely considered one of the most significant reproductive biologists of the 20th century. Her fundamental research on embryology has helped countless people realize their dreams of parenthood.

Anne McLaren was born in London on this day in 1927. As a child, she had a small role in the 1936 H.G. Wells’ sci-fi film “The Shape of Things to Come.” In the scene—set in 2054—her great-grandfather lectured her on the advancement of space technology that had put mice on the moon. McLaren credits this formative, albeit fictional, history lesson as one of the early inspirations for her love of science. She went on to study zoology at the University of Oxford, where her passion for science only grew as she learned from talented biologists such as Peter Medawar—a Nobel laureate for his research on the human immune system.