She worked on important research on ribonucleic acids (RNA), and on zinc deficiency as a risk factor in reproduction.

[5] Apgar worked for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a biochemist in the Plant, Soil and Nutrition Laboratory at Cornell University.

[6] The team won a 1965 USDA Distinguished Service Award, and Holley received a Nobel Prize in 1968, for that work.

[3] In 1972, she received an Arthur S. Flemming Award, given annually to ten promising young employees of the federal government.

[17] Some of her articles include the following: Jean Francis married Ronald W. Apgar in 1958; they lived in Ithaca, New York, and had three children.