Pioneer of in vitro fertilization dies

NORFOLK, Va., March 27 (UPI) -- Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones, who pioneered in vitro fertilization in the United States, has died in Norfolk, Va., at the age of 92.

The Baltimore Sun reported that Jones suffered a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Norfolk.

Jones and her husband, Dr. Howard Jones Jr., moved to Norfolk in 1978 after retiring from teaching and research at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore.

They started the in vitro fertilization program at Eastern Virginia Medical School after Howard Jones told a reporter that all it would take was "a little money."

"A former patient of Georgeanna's who had been infertile called and asked, 'How much do you need?' And that's how we got started," Jones told the Sun.

A native of Baltimore, Georgeanna Jones decided to become a doctor at the age of 5. She and her husband, who had been delivered by her father, taught at Hopkins for 40 years.

In addition to her work on in vitro fertilization, Georgeanna Jones discovered at Hopkins that a hormone vital to pregnancy is produced by the placenta, not the pituitary. She published 350 articles and five textbooks during her career.