[3] Her graduate work focused on a bacteria that could make acetone and butanol which proved to be useful for producing rubber.
[7][8] This led to improved growing methods of the world’s first antibiotic which was used to treat life-threatening infections suffered by allied troops.
In 1930, McCoy joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty after earning her degrees there, and was one of the first women to become a full professor there.
[3] During World War I, McCoy was studying chemicals useful to the production of rubber and characterized acetone/butyl-producing Clostridium bacteria.
[5] In addition to her impactful research to develop a new, highly productive strain of penicillin during World War II, McCoy was part of the team that first discovered Moorella thermoacetica,[9] a model organism important to developing our understanding of the Acetyl Co-A metabolic pathway.
[4] The McCoy Farmhouse in Fitchburg, where she lived from 1949 until her death,[1] is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.