He was the first to use ascorbic acid in the food processing industry as a preservative, and originated and published the hypothesis that humans require much larger amounts of Vitamin C for optimal health than is necessary to prevent scurvy.
In 1934, Stone, while director of the enzyme and fermentation research laboratory for the Wallerstein Company, worked on the antioxidant properties of ascorbate (also known as Vitamin C), which had then recently been described by Albert Szent-Györgyi only two years earlier.
He was awarded 26 patents in industrial chemistry, mainly related to fermentation science, pharmaceutical techniques, and nutrient cultivation.
By the late 1950s, Stone had formulated his hypothesis that scurvy was not a dietary disturbance, but potentially a flaw in human genetics that had suppressed an essential part of the mammalian biochemistry and had been misunderstood by nutritionists.
Irwin Stone introduced Linus Pauling to Vitamin C and is recognised within orthomolecular medicine as one of its founders.