Biography: Dr. Georgeanna Seegar Jones

Georgeanna Seegar Jones, M.D., spent a lifetime breaking through the "glass ceiling" of medical research and making a mark in reproductive medicine and endocrinology. While still a medical student at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Jones completed her groundbreaking research, which showed that the pregnancy hormone (now called chorionic gonadotropin) arose from the placenta rather than from the pituitary, as was previously believed.

After earning her degree in medicine from Hopkins in 1936, Dr. Georgeanna Seegar undertook postgraduate training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She was the house officer in gynecology from 1936 to 1937, and a trainee at the National Cancer Institute from 1937 to 1938. She spent 1938 and 1939 doing laboratory research in endocrinology in the Department of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University. In 1938, she was named gynecologist-in-charge at the Gynecological Endocrine Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and director of the Laboratory of Reproductive Physiology, positions she retained until 1978.

Together with her husband Dr. Howard W. Jones, Jr., an eminent pelvic surgeon, Dr. Georgeanna Seegar was established a Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in 1939. The couple married the following year.Together, they have worked closely with residents and fellows to build the subspecialties of reproductive endocrinology. In 1978, the same year that two English physicians performed the first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF), the Joneses were offered the opportunity to create a similar program in the United States. They accepted the offer and moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where they established the now world-renowned Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School. The couple have three children.

Dr. Georgeanna Jones was co-editor-in-chief of The Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey from 1957 to 1989, and among her many honors has been the Distinguished Service Award Medal from the Cosmopolitan Club of Norfolk, 1988; the Dean's Outstanding Faculty Award from Eastern Virginia Medical School, 1996; the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University, 1997; and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, Chicago, Illinois, 2000.