Howard W. Jones Jr
The Modern Laboratory · People
The Modern Laboratory
Howard W. Jones Jr
A surgeon who began a new career at an age when most people retire, and saw the first American IVF baby born.
Baltimore. Howard Wilbur Jones Jr was born in Baltimore on 30 December 1910. He studied at Amherst College and took his medical degree at Johns Hopkins in 1935. In the Second World War he led a surgical team serving with the US Third Army in Europe. In 1940 he married Georgeanna Seegar, a fellow Hopkins doctor, and they worked side by side for 65 years.
Johns Hopkins. Jones joined the Hopkins faculty part time in 1948 and full time in 1960. In 1951 he was the first Hopkins doctor to examine Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells became the first human cells to keep growing in the laboratory. He was a pioneer of surgery for people born with differences of sex development, and co-wrote a textbook on the subject. In 1966 he was a co-author, with Robert Edwards, of an early paper on attempts to fertilise human eggs that had ripened in the laboratory.
Norfolk. Hopkins rules made him retire in 1978, at 67. That year he and Georgeanna became professors at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 1980 they began an IVF programme there. A first year of natural cycles brought no pregnancy. Then Georgeanna's plan to grow several follicles with hMG and hCG changed everything. On 28 December 1981 Elizabeth Carr was born, the first baby in the United States conceived by IVF. The Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at the school carries their name.
A long life. Jones received nine honorary degrees and honorary membership of more than twenty medical societies abroad. He kept writing into his second century; his memoir, In Vitro Fertilization Comes to America, appeared in 2014. He died in Virginia on 31 July 2015, aged 104, ten years after Georgeanna.
Also see: Georgeanna Seegar Jones, Bruno Lunenfeld, Robert Edwards
About the sources
- Johns Hopkins University Hub, obituary, 3 August 2015: “Howard W. Jones Jr., pioneer in reproductive medicine, dies at 104” (hub.jhu.edu/2015/08/03/howard-jones-reproductive-medicine-obit): died at 104; faculty part time 1948, full time 1960; retired 1978; first Hopkins physician to examine Henrietta Lacks; surgery for intersex patients; memoir published the year before his death.
- Zhang M. “Howard Wilber Jones Jr.” Embryo Project Encyclopedia, Arizona State University, 2013: born 30 December 1910, Baltimore; Amherst 1931; MD Johns Hopkins 1935; wartime surgical team with the Third Army; Norfolk 1978; Elizabeth Carr born 28 December 1981; nine honorary degrees; honorary membership of more than 20 foreign societies.
- Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins: “Howard W. and Georgeanna Seegar Jones” (medicalarchives.jhmi.edu): 1910 to 2015; professors at Eastern Virginia Medical School from 1978.
- Wikipedia: Howard W. Jones, consulted October 2026, for the date of death (31 July 2015).
- Edwards RG, Donahue RP, Baramki TA, Jones HW Jr. Preliminary attempts to fertilize human oocytes matured in vitro. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1966;96(2):192–200.
- Jones HW Jr, Jones GS, Andrews MC, et al. The program for in vitro fertilization at Norfolk. Fertility and Sterility 1982;38(1):14–21.
- Garcia J, Acosta A, Andrews MC, Jones GS, Jones HW, et al. In vitro fertilization in Norfolk, Virginia, 1980–1983. Journal of In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer 1984;1(1):24–28.
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Compiled with AI-assisted research and checked against the original sources. Not yet peer-reviewed. Corrections are warmly welcomed.
