On July 31st, Howard Jones, a pioneer of assisted reproductive technology, died at the age of 104 years. Professor Howard W. Jones and his wife, Professor Georgiana Segal Jones, who is known as the “Mother of IVF”, enabled the birth of the first IVF baby in the U.S. and the second IVF baby in the world. Wang Dejing, Reproductive Center, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical College In 1981, Prof. Howard W. Jones introduced the in vitro fertilization technology (IVF) at an academic conference. In our country, people often call “In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer” (IVF-ET) “test tube baby”. IVF-ET is often called “test tube baby” in Chinese folklore. On July 31, Howard W. Jones, a pioneer of IVF technology, died at the age of 104 years. On July 25, 1978, the world’s first test-tube baby was born in the United Kingdom, and the inventor is known as the “father of test-tube baby,” Robert Edwards (Robert Edwards). Robert Edwards, the inventor of IVF, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his outstanding contributions to human in vitro fertilization (IVF) therapy. The following year, IVF pioneer Howard W. Jones and his wife, Georgeanna Jones (known as the “Mother of IVF”), also established an IVF research program at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in the U.S. In 1981, they announced the first U.S. test-tube baby. In 1981, they announced the birth of Elizabeth Jordan Carr, the first test-tube baby in the United States. By this time, Howard W. Jones was 70 years old. CBS News quoted Professor Richard Homan, Dean of the Eastern Virginia Medical School, as saying of Howard Jones’ life’s work: “There are few people in this world whom you admire from the first time you meet them, and Professor Jones was one of those few, with a zest and curiosity for life, a sharp mind, a great deal of wisdom, and a humility and accessibility that made him the perfect scholar, academician, and person. He was the consummate scholar, academician and physician, a role model for all of us to emulate and learn from. Born in 1910, Prof. Jones started his family in 1940 with Georgeanna Seegar, a renowned American scientist, and they devoted their lives to the study of human infertility. Although Professor Jones was facing his second retirement in 1997 (at the age of 87), he continued to write papers and attend academic conferences up until the last month before his death. In 1984, through his efforts, Prof. Jones helped to establish an ethics committee on assisted reproduction, later renamed the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM); in addition to writing 12 books on assisted reproduction during his lifetime, including his memoirs –In Vitro Fertilization Comes to America: A Memoir of a Medical Breakthrough,” a book about assisted reproduction. Breakthrough), which was officially published in December 2014. Supplementary: Knowledge about Assisted Reproductive Technology Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) refers to the use of medical aids to make infertile couples pregnant, including Artificial Insemination (AI) and In Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer (IVF-ET) and their derivatives. ) and its derivative technologies. The birth of the world’s first in vitro fertilization (IVF) is regarded as another miracle in the medical field in the 20th century after the success of heart transplantation, which has inspired many countries around the world to research this high technology. At this stage, the technologies derived from IVF also include intracytoplasmic sperm microinjection (ICSI), preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), IVF-ET, surrogacy and so on. China’s first in vitro fertilization (IVF) baby, Zheng Mengzhu, was nurtured by renowned obstetrician and gynecologist Zhang Lizhu, and was born in 1988 at the Third Hospital of Peking University, marking a milestone in the development of reproductive medicine in China.