Phyllis T. Johnson

This article describes the American zoologist. For the British figure skater, see Phyllis Johnson

Phyllis Truth Johnson (born August 8, 1926 in Salem , Oregon ) is an American parasitologist , virologist, and marine biologist .

Childhood and youth

Phyllis T. Johnson grew up as the child of oceanographer Martin W. Johnson and a math and science teacher in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island in Washington State . Johnson's father was employed there at Friday Harbor Laboratories , a research facility at the University of Washington , and was working on his dissertation . In 1934 Johnson went with his family to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla , where he was initially a lecturer and later a professor of marine biology .

Education

Phyllis T. Johnson studied zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, and received a bachelor's degree in 1948. From 1948 to 1950 she worked in the California health department and identified ectoparasites of rodents , in the context of field studies for the transmission of bubonic plague had been collected. During an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , Johnson met entomologist Robert Traub of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC . Under his guidance, she completed most of her doctoral studies there, but was also deployed for six months during the Korean War to investigate an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever among US soldiers caused by hantaviruses . In 1954, the University of California, Berkeley awarded her a doctorate in parasitology. Her doctoral thesis was published in 1957 by the Entomological Society of Washington .

entomology

From 1955 to 1958 Johnson worked as curator of the collection of lice and fleas in the Museum of Landwirtschaftsmisteriums, which later became the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution emerged. Together with Robert Traub, she wrote the first descriptions of more than a dozen North and South American fleas. Other of her publications dealt with the taxonomy of lice and fleas, including several revisions of higher taxa. As early as 1954, Johnson published a study on the isolation and culture of Orientia tsutsugamushi , the causative agent of the tsutsugamushi fever transmitted by trombidiform mites . While working for the National Museum, she spent some time in Panama in 1957 at the Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies , a tropical medicine research facility. From 1959 Johnson worked at the Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies and dealt with the epidemiology of leishmaniasis . At the same time, she continued to publish work on the taxonomy of lice and fleas.

Invertebrate Pathology

In 1964 Johnson gave up her operation in Panama because she did not feel up to the tropical heat. She went to the developing University of California at Irvine as a pathobiologist . Since there was no laboratory space available for her at the beginning of her activity, she worked over several years to compile a bibliography on the pathology of invertebrates with the exception of insects. Her own publications from this period dealt with the pathology of marine bivalves , echinoderms, and numerous other invertebrate taxa. In 1970 Johnson moved to the California Institute of Technology and in 1971 to the Division of Environmental Studies, now the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center , in Edgewater , Maryland .

Johnson's last scientific station was the National Marine Fisheries Laboratory in Oxford , Maryland from 1972 . Until she retired in 1987, she only researched the anatomy , pathology and pathogens of aquatic crustaceans . Johnson's most important research findings include descriptions of several viruses that cause disease in the economically important blue crab ( Callinectes sapidus ). Out of eight pathogenic viruses of this type of cancer that became known up to 2003, seven were either described by Johnson himself or the description was based on her research. In addition, Johnson made important contributions to other diseases of the blue crab, namely infections by bacteria and unicellular organisms, which are favored by the stress of catching and subsequent keeping. Johnson's last publications in the 1980s covered parasites and pathogens of economic importance from crustaceans, lobsters , king crabs , shrimp and others.

Initial descriptions (selection)

• Hamophthiriidae Johnson , 1969 , a family of real animal lice
• Hoplopleura diaphora Johnson , 1964
• Neohaematopinus appressus Johnson , 1972
• Neohaematopinus callosciuri Johnson , 1959
• Polyplax rhizomydis Johnson , 1972

Publications (selection)

• Phyllis T. Johnson: A Classification of the Siphonaptera of South America . PhD. thesis, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley 1954 and Memoir of the Entomological Society of Washington No. 5A, Washington, DC 1957.
• Phyllis T. Johnson: The rodent-infesting Anoplura (Sucking lice) of Thailand, with remarks on some related species . In: Proceedings of the United States National Museum 1959, Volume 110, pp. 569-598, doi : 10.5479 / si.00963801.110-3421.569 .
• Phyllis T. Johnson and FA Chapman: An annotated bibliography of pathology in invertebrates other than insects . Burgess, Minneapolis 1968.
• Phyllis T. Johnson and FA Chapman: An annotated bibliography of pathology in invertebrates other than insects. Supplement . Center for Pathobiology, Irvine 1969.
• Phyllis T. Johnson: Histology of the Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus: A Model for the Decapoda . Praeger, New York 1980.

Dedication name (selection)

• Johnsonpthira Benoit , 1961 , a genus of real animal lice , family Polyplacidae .

literature

• Grant D. Stentiford: Phyllis T. Johnson - Pioneer of marine invertebrate pathology . In: Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 2016, Volume 138, pp. 120-125, doi : 10.1016 / j.jip.2015.09.002 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Grant D. Stentiford: Phyllis T. Johnson , p. 120.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Grant D. Stentiford: Phyllis T. Johnson , S. 121st
3. ↑ ^{a b} Grant D. Stentiford: Phyllis T. Johnson , S. 122nd
4. ↑ Grant D. Stentiford: Phyllis T. Johnson , S. 123rd