Howard Jones, Pioneer in Reproductive Medicine, Dies at Age 104

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great respect and sadness that we must inform you that Howard W. Jones Jr., a pioneer in reproductive medicine who oversaw the 1965 Johns Hopkins research that resulted in the world's first successful fertilization of a human egg outside the body, then collaborated with his wife, gynecologic endocrinologist Georgeanna Seegar Jones, to oversee the 1981 birth of the first "test tube" baby in the United States, died July 31 at Sentara Heart Hospital in Virginia. He was 104. He had published his most recent book, In Vitro Fertilization Comes to America: Memoir of a Medical Breakthrough, just last year.

In recent years, Jones also became known for having been the first physician at Johns Hopkins to examine Henrietta Lacks, the 1951 African-American patient with cervical cancer whose tumor cells were the first human cell line to reproduce continuously in the laboratory, becoming the basis for studies that have led to some of the most crucial medical advances of the past 65 years. 

As accomplished as Jones was in the operating room and laboratory, he was also revered as a teacher and mentor who influenced generations of Johns Hopkins medical students. One such physician, 1973 school of medicine graduate Robert D. Chessin  recalls the care and respect Jones displayed with all patients, always asking their permission before he examined them.

Jones was born on Dec. 30, 1910, in Baltimore, the son of a physician. After graduating from Amherst College in 1931, he entered the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Following his graduation from Johns Hopkins, Jones completed his internship and residency in general surgery while working for both Howard Kelly and Kelly's successor as head of Johns Hopkins gynecology, Thomas S. Cullen. 

During World War II, Jones served as a general battlefield surgeon with General George S. Patton Jr.'s Third Army as it fought its way across France and Germany.

Returning to Johns Hopkins following the war, Jones spent six months as a resident in gynecology, which became his surgical specialty. He and his wife joined the Johns Hopkins part-time faculty in 1948, maintaining private practices while working at the hospital, and became full-time faculty in 1960.

Jones' work with in vitro fertilization began in 1965, when he helped arrange for British scientist Robert Edwards to come to Johns Hopkins as a fellow to conduct experiments aimed at achieving fertilization of a human egg outside of the body, something he already had accomplished with mice. Working together and with others, Jones and Edwards succeeded but didn't realize it at the time. Years later, examining their study in the wake of subsequent developments, they recognized that they actually had done it.

Due to Johns Hopkins' policy in 1978 of requiring faculty to retire at 65, the Joneses left Baltimore that year and moved to Norfolk at the invitation of Mason Andrews, head of gynecology at the then-new Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS).There, they established the Jones Institute of Reproductive Medicine, and three years later their efforts resulted in the birth of the first "test tube" baby in the United States.

Jones also was a pioneer in performing operations on intersexual patients, such as genetic females born with male genitalia. He and other Johns Hopkins specialists eventually co-authored a major text on such cases, Hermaphroditism and Allied Disorders. Jones also performed some of the first sex change operations for transsexuals.

In 2000, Jones retired from his medical practice to care for his wife, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She died in 2005 at the age of 92. Jones is survived by three children—Howard W. Jones III, a physician in Nashville, Tennessee; Georgeanna Jones Klingensmith, a financial advisor; and Lawrence Jones, also a physician, both of Denver, Colorado—seven grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Our thoughts are with his family as we mourn the loss and celebrate the accomplishments of a true pioneer and innovator in his field.

Sincerely,

Paul B. Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine