Scripps Analysis professor emeritus John Johnson, PhD, has been elected to the Nationwide Academy of Sciences—one of many highest honors given to scientists. In response to the Academy, members are chosen “in recognition of their distinguished and persevering with achievements in authentic analysis.”
“Changing into a member of the Academy is a superb honor for me and the 70 graduate college students and put up docs which have labored in my lab since 1978, in addition to quite a few collaborators at Scripps and around the globe,” says Johnson, who can be the Eldon R. Strahm Professor of Structural Virology within the Division of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
The group shares my dedication to serving to the world by means of science.”
John Johnson, PhD, professor emeritus, Scripps Analysis
Johnson earned his doctorate in bodily and inorganic chemistry from Iowa State College in 1972 and spent 23 years at Purdue College earlier than transferring to The Scripps Analysis Institute (now referred to as Scripps Analysis) in 1995. His lab investigates a spread of viruses—together with those who infect micro organism, bugs and vegetation—and he has printed a number of associated research. A lot of his work used X-ray crystallography and, extra not too long ago, electron cryomicroscopy to resolve the buildings of intact advanced virus particles.
Throughout his tenure, Johnson printed the primary experiences of icosahedral virus particles as constructing blocks for natural chemistry, bridging the sector of chemistry with biology. And whereas combining chemistry with molecular genetics, he discovered a technique to connect a spread of molecules to the floor of a virus, thereby imbuing the virus with the properties of these molecules. This methodology is relevant to a number of scientific fields, together with supplies science, drugs and molecular electronics. It may be used to immobilize giant molecules—and even complete proteins—on the floor of a virus. Much more, the approach was utilized to construct a circuit on the floor of a virus using chemical “nanowires.” His lab additionally generated the primary atomic fashions of an insect virus, a dsDNA bacteriophage and an archaeal virus that lives within the sizzling springs of Yellowstone Nationwide Park.
For his contributions to science, Johnson has been awarded the Distinguished Scientist Award by the American Chemical Society-San Diego. Johnson additionally served as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Nationwide Most cancers Institute in addition to the Nationwide Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Pores and skin Ailments, and on the council of the Nationwide Institute of Common Medical Sciences As well as, he served on the editorial boards of a number of peer-reviewed journals, together with the Journal of Common Virology, the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Journal of Molecular Recognition, Construction and Virology.
Established by an Act of Congress that was signed into legislation by President Abraham Lincoln, the Nationwide Academy of Sciences has been in existence since 1863. As advisors to the nation, Academy members are required to supply scientific steerage to any US authorities physique “every time known as upon.”
With the election of Johnson, Scripps Analysis college now maintain 30 memberships within the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Medication and Engineering.