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Pittman, Margaret (1901-1995)

Margaret Pittman, PhD, is recognized for her work on an improved and standardized pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine.

Pittman came to medicine early by assisting her father in his rural Arkansas medical practice. She attended the University of Chicago with money she had saved from teaching, completing her Ph.D. in 1928. Following positions at the Rockefeller Insititute and the New York State Department of Health, she came to the NIH in 1936 to work with Dr. Sara Braham, who had taught her at the Unviersity of Chicago.

While at the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, Pittman developed studies on strains of Hemophilus influenzae (H. influenzae) isolated from infected patients. At the National Institute of Health, she became laboratory chief, heading the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, Division of Biologics and Standards, from 1957 to 1971. Pittman isolated the H. influenzae strain responsible for most childhood meningitis, helped identify the cause of epidemic conjunctivitis, and made key observations that led to the development of a Salmonella vaccine.

In 1970, she was recognized with the Federal Women's Award, and she served as president of the Society of American Bacteriologists and of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Although Pittman retired from federal service in 1971, she kept working at NIH as a guest until 1993. The Margaret Pittman Lectureship, created in 1994, honors Pittman for her exceptional research achievements at the National Institutes of Health.