Louise Johnson

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Louise Napier Johnson
Louise Napier Johnson.jpg
Born (1940-09-26)September 26, 1940
Died September 25, 2012(2012-09-25) (aged 71)
Institutions University of Oxford
Known for Discovering the structure of lysozyme and N-Acetylglucosamine[1]
Notable awards Fellow of the Royal Society
Order of the British Empire
Spouse Abdus Salam

Professor Dame Louise Napier Johnson, DBE, FRS (26 September 1940 - 25 September 2012[2]), was a British biochemist and protein crystallographer. She was David Phillips Professor of Molecular Biophysics at the University of Oxford from 1990 to 2007, and later an emeritus professor.[3]

Contents

Career [edit]

She was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College.[4] In 2004 she was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of Bath. She was elected a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences.[5]

She was part of the team, begun by William Lawrence Bragg and later led by David Phillips, that discovered the structure of the enzyme lysozyme;[6][7] this was the third protein structure ever solved by x-ray crystallography, and the first enzyme. She also worked with Fred Richards and Hal Wyckoff on the structure of ribonuclease S,[8] the fourth protein structure solved. Johnson's own lab at Oxford solved and studied many other protein structures, and she is a depositor on 100 PDB entries including many forms of glycogen phosphorylase[9] and of cell cycle CDK/cyclin complexes[10] Together with Tom Blundell, she wrote an influential textbook on protein crystallography.[11]

Personal life [edit]

Johnson was married to Nobel laureate Abdus Salam. She died on 25 September 2012 in Cambridge, England.[2][12]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Johnson, L. N.; Phillips, D. C. (1964). "Crystal Structure of N-Acetylglucosamine". Nature 202 (4932): 588. doi:10.1038/202588a0.  edit
  2. ^ a b "ICTP - In Memoriam". Ictp.it. 1940-09-26. Retrieved 2012-10-06. 
  3. ^ Sansom, M. (2012). "Louise Johnson (1940–2012)". Nature 490 (7421): 488. doi:10.1038/490488a.  edit
  4. ^ University of Oxford. "Professors Emeritus". University of Oxford Calendar 2009–2010. Oxford University Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-19-956692-1. 
  5. ^ Staff (8 October 2012). "Obituaries: Professor Dame Louise Johnson". The Telegraph (UK). Retrieved 2012-10-22. 
  6. ^ "Lawrence Bragg and Lysozyme". Royal Institution of Great Britain. 2008. Retrieved 23 November 2010. 
  7. ^ Blake, C. C. F.; Koenig, D. F.; Mair, G. A.; North, A. C. T.; Phillips, D. C.; Sarma, V. R. (1965). "Structure of Hen Egg-White Lysozyme: A Three-dimensional Fourier Synthesis at 2 Å Resolution". Nature 206 (4986): 757–761. doi:10.1038/206757a0. PMID 5891407.  edit
  8. ^ Preisler, H. D.; Rustum, Y.; Walczak, I. (1977). "Drug uptake and ribonucleotide profiles of blast-enriched and blast-depleted human bone marrow cell populations". British journal of haematology 37 (2): 223–230. PMID 603755.  edit
  9. ^ Barford, D.; Johnson, L. N. (1989). "The allosteric transition of glycogen phosphorylase". Nature 340 (6235): 609–616. doi:10.1038/340609a0. PMID 2770867.  edit
  10. ^ Honda, R.; Lowe, E. D.; Dubinina, E.; Skamnaki, V.; Cook, A.; Brown, N. R.; Johnson, L. N. (2005). "The structure of cyclin E1/CDK2: Implications for CDK2 activation and CDK2-independent roles". The EMBO Journal 24 (3): 452–463. doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7600554. PMC 548659. PMID 15660127.  edit
  11. ^ Blundell TL, Johnson LN (1976), Protein Crystallography, Academic Press, ISBN 0121083500 
  12. ^ Tom Blundell. "Dame Louise Johnson obituary | Science | guardian.co.uk". Guardian. Retrieved 2012-10-10. 

External links [edit]


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