| Authorised form of name | Johnson; Dame; Louise Napier (1940 - 2012); biophysicist and structural biologist |
| Dates | 1940 - 2012 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | South Bank Nursing Home, Bath Road, Worcester, Worcestershire, England |
| Date of birth | 26 September 1940 |
| Place of death | Cambridge, England |
| Date of death | 25 September 2012 |
| Occupation | biophysicist and structural biologist |
| Research field | Structural biology |
| Biochemistry |
| Biophysics |
| Molecular biophysics |
| Activity | Education:
Putney High School; School in Aberdeen, Scotland; Wimbledon High School for Girls, London; University College, London BSc 1959-1962; PhD 1965
Career:
Post-doctoral research assistant at Yale University (1966); returned to England to work at the newly formed laboratory of molecular biophysics, Zoology Department, Oxford University (1967); departmental demonstrator, Somerville College, Oxford (1967–73); university lecturer and additional fellow of Somerville College (1973); gained readership (1990); head of the laboratory of molecular biophysics, Oxford, became the David Phillips professor of molecular biophysics, and a professorial fellow of Corpus Christi College (1990-2007); science director for life sciences at Diamond Light Source, the UK's synchrotron X-ray source in Oxfordshire (2003);
David Phillips Professor of Molecular Biophysics, University of Oxford
Honours:
DBE 2003
Awards/Medals:
Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford
Hon DSc University of St Andrews 1992
Associate Fellow of the Third World Academy of Science 2000
Hon DSc University of Bath 2004
Hon DSc Imperial College London 2009
Hon DSc University of Cambridge 2010
Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, 2011 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 15/03/1990 |
| Age at election | 49 |
| Relationships | Parents: George Edmund Johnson (1904–1992), former wool broker then serving in the RAF and Elizabeth Minna, née King (1914–1992).
Spouse: Muhammad Abdus Salam (1926–1996) (FRS 1959), theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate.
Children: Umar (b. 1974), and a daughter, Sayyeda (b. 1982). |
| OtherInfo | Distinguished for her contributions to protein crystallography and to the understanding of enzyme structure and activity.
The first to study complexes between an enzyme (lysozyme) and competitive inhibitors in detail crystallographically. Her results provided the basis for the first model of an enzyme-substrate complex and the first formulation of a stereochemical mechanism of enzyme catalysis. Subsequently she solved the structure of the very-large enzyme glycogen phosphorylase and determined the binding sires of its substrate and allosteric effectors. Her results have provided the basis for stereochemical interpretations of the control of the enzyme's activity by allosteric effectors and by reversible phosphorylation.
She and her colleagues were instrumental in developing techniques for data collection from protein crystals by means of synchrotron radiation. |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Source | References:
L N Johnson FRS (and M Vijayan), 'Gopalasamudram Narayana Ramachandran', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 2005 vol 51 pp 367-379
Anne Purkiss 'Scientists 1985 - 2010; Portraits of Fellows of the Royal Society' 2010, p.27 |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/27279641 |
| Code | NA4932 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/1990/18 | Johnson, Louise Napier: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1987 |
| IM/002434 | Johnson, Dame Louise Napier | 1990 |