Google honors reproductive biologist Anne McLaren with new Doodle

April 26 (UPI) -- Google on Monday celebrated reproductive biologist Anne McLaren on what would have been her 94th birthday, with a new Doodle.

The scientist and author is considered to be one of the most significant reproductive biologists of the 20th century.

Google's homepage features artwork of McLaren working inside of a lab.

Born on April 26, 1927, McLaren had a small role in H.G. Wells' 1936 film The Shape of Things to Come, which she said helped inspire her love of science.

McLaren used mice to better understand the biology of mammalian development in the 1950s and successfully grew mouse embryos in vitro. This allowed McLaren and her colleague John Biggers to demonstrate the possibility of creating embryos outside of the mother's womb.

The findings, published in 1958, paved the way for the creation of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, technology.

McLaren served as the only research scientist on the Warnock Committee, which advocated for the development of IVF technology and embryology. McLaren played an essential role in enacting the 1990 Human Fertilization and Embryology Act, which limited in-vitro culture of human embryos to 14-days after creation.

McLaren also became the first woman ever to hold office of The Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific institution, and was elected president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, now the British Science Association, in 1994.