Meet Cora Downs - a KU Biology Historical Highlight

Cornelia ‘Cora’ Downs was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1892. As a young adult she attended the University of Kansas and in 1924 she became was the first woman to earn a doctoral degree from the University. Her PhD was in bacteriology and after graduation she retained her position working within the Department of Bacteriology that she had begun in 1917. Over the course of her employment, Cora rose through the ranks from instructor to full professor of microbiology in 1935 and would continue working for the University of Kansas until 1963.

In 1943, at the onset of World War II, Cora was recruited as a civilian expert for the Chemical Warfare Service at Camp Detrick in Maryland, where she headed a top-secret biological warfare project and led a division of 40 scientists and technicians. The goal of their research was to stop the spread of infectious disease amongst allied nations.

The project was a success! The researchers developed multiple significant scientific and medical advances that are still in use today for the treatment of infectious disease.

Cora was later quoted in a Kansas newspaper saying the knowledge gained from that project “advanced the treatment and prevention of infectious disease by 50 years.”

After the war, Downs returned to the University of Kansas, and conducted groundbreaking research in microbiology, studying the animal immune response to tularemia. Tularemia, more commonly known as rabbit fever, is a rare but highly contagious disease, that is transmittable between animals and humans and is often fatal.

Alongside that research, Cora also helped develop the florescent antibody technique – a diagnostic technique used to identify viruses -- by studying methods to simplify the synthesis of labelling agents used in the procedure.

Cora’s research was acknowledged worldwide, from Russia to her home state, where the Kansas Academy of Sciences called her research “one of the most extended and ambitious projects ever carried on in the state.” Along with the study on tularemia, Cora also made research advances in the understanding of rickettsia, Q fever, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Dr. Cora Downs retired from the University of Kansas in 1963 and received KU’s highest honor, the Citation for Distinguished Service, a year later.

“People think I seek publicity, and I don’t … I’m just a woman who had done something she very much wanted to do, that’s all.” - Dr. Cora Downs