Dr. David Johnson is a native Tennessean from Memphis whose family goes back four
generations in the Jackson/Lexington area. His bachelors and doctoral degrees in
chemistry are from the University of Memphis. Following post-doctoral studies and
serving on the research faculty at the University of Georgia, he came to ETSU and
Quillen in 1978 as one of its founding faculty and taught the first class on the first
day. He was also a founding faculty for the College of Pharmacy and was course director
of biochemistry for the first two classes. Research interests focus on the proteases
and protease inhibitors in humans, with emphasis on pulmonary emphysema and mast cells.
He discovered that sequence of the inhibitory site of Alpha-1 Antitrypsin and showed
that oxidation of a critical methionine results in significantly reduced inhibition
human neutrophil elastase. Smoking and air pollution are thought to oxidize this A1AT
methionine in the lungs which allows uninhibited elastase to damage the elastin-rich
lung alveoli. More recent work has focused on the bioengineering of human mast cell
chymase and tryptase, as well as intestinal enteropeptidase (critical to protein digestion)
and neutrophil elastase and cathepsin G (involved in bacterial killing and inflammation).
Biochemistry was the first course to be "flipped" (recorded lectures) and the first
course to use Team-Base Learning. Along with Drs. Robinson, Rusiñol and Thewke biochemistry
has become the students’ top rated first year course at Quillen. Dr. Johnson has a
public YouTube channel with over 1500 subscribers who are learning about protein structure,
molecular modeling, blood clotting, amino acid metabolism and vitamins.
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on
you.”
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
Saint Augustin
Here is a link to a YouTube video on our paper describing the expression of recombinant
human neutrophil elastase.
It is Public, so it can be viewed by anyone, and you can share the link with others.
It was a big part of Eliot Smith's dissertation work.
YouTube Video: Human Neutrophil Elastase