Howard W. Jones Jr., MD, a Johns Hopkins physician who pioneered in vitro fertilization research and oversaw the birth of the first "test tube" baby, died of respiratory failure July 31, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Dr. Jones was 104.
Dr. Jones was also known for his research on genital anomalies. In addition, he was the first Johns Hopkins physician to examine Henrietta Lacks, an African American patient whose cervical cancer tumor cells were unwittingly taken and have been used to develop in vitro fertilization, cloning and the polio vaccine.
After serving as a battlefield surgeon in World War II, Dr. Jones and his wife, Georgeanna Seegar Jones, MD, joined the Johns Hopkins part-time faculty in 1948 while maintaining their own private practices. They became full-time faculty in 1960.
Although he retired in 2000, Dr. Jones published In Vitro Fertilization Comes to America: Memoir of a Medical Breakthrough last year.
"Johns Hopkins has lost one of our true giants — as has the entire world of medicine and gynecology in particular," said Paul B. Rothman, MD, dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Dr. Jones was one of the most remarkable individuals I've ever known — with a razor-sharp mind, memory and perspective that would be the envy of any half, or a quarter, of his age."