NIH Eminent Scientist Profiles

Sara Branham graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia in 1907, becoming the third woman in her family to do so following her mother and grandmother. After teaching science in girls’ schools, Branham enrolled in the University of Colorado and then earned her Ph.D. and M.D. at the University of Chicago. While at Chicago, she taught some of the up-and-coming women scientists who would later work alongside her at the NIH. She is credited with the discovery and isolation of the virus that causes spinal meningitis, as reflected in an article about her titled “Georgia-Born Woman Doctor Uncovers Cure for the Dread Germ of Meningitis” in the Atlanta Constitution on March 6, 1939, which stated, “She killed millions of killers!” 

Sara Branham's papers are held at the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division. Dr. Branham, a United States Public Health Service scientist, became nationally known for her studies in the field of infectious diseases and is considered one of the “grand ladies of microbiology.” In 1928, when Branham was forty years old, she was appointed to the National Institute of Health to study pathogens and investigate causes and cures for influenza. Soon she was also investigating salmonella, shigella, and diphtheria toxins and became an expert on the chemotherapy of bacterial meningitis. She became principal bacteriologist in 1950 and served as Chief of the Section on Bacterial Toxins in the Division of Biological Standards until retirement in 1958.