From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for April 9, 1975:

Kansas University’s Cora Downs, professor emerita of microbiology, was to receive the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare’s Federal Regional Council International Women’s Year Award for Health Protection. “Not only is Cora Downs deserving of this award, but she is long overdue,” said David Paretsky, chair of the KU Department of Microbiology.. “She did most of her work in the Midwest, where recognition is not accorded. Also, she was a woman and these honors are given infrequently to women. Her recognition is higher in Europe and behind the Iron Curtain than it is here.” Dr. Downs, 83, had focused much of her research on viruses, particularly tularemia and rickettsiae. She had also been responsible for innovating fluorescent antibody staining techniques which were now widely used. Born in Wyandotte in 1892, she had completed her A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at KU, majoring in the then-new field of bacteriology. Most of her contributions to microbiology had come in the days before federal research grants, meaning that funds and equipment had been difficult to come by. “We had to scrounge,” she related. “We didn’t have quarters to work in or money to pay assistants or graduate students. They either worked for credit or they didn’t do graduate work.”