- Involved in outreach events to schools and the public including the Wellcome-funded "I'm a Scientist" and L'Oreal / ZSL "Soap Box Science"
- Contributor to "The Open Laboratory" popular science anthology
Louise Johnson

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+44 (0) 118 378 4432
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Associate Professor
Lecturer
Areas of interest
- Evolution
- Genetics
- Intragenomic conflict
- Genomics
- Levels of selection
- Genetic systems
- Cancer evolution
Teaching
- Part 1: Pathology: Introduction to Human Disease, Exploiters and Exploited
- Part 2: Evolutionary Biology, Animal, Plant and Microbial Development
- Part 3: Evolutionary Genetics and Phylogeny, Seminars in Biology , Mechanisms for Microbial Function, Research Project Supervision
Research centres and groups
International Collaborators
- Prof. Paul Rainey FRSNZ, New Zealand Institute of Advanced Study and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, New Zealand
- Prof. James Cook, University of Western Sydney, Australia
- Dr Tek Tay, CSIRO, Australia
National Collaborators
- Prof. Michael Brockhurst, University of York
- Prof. Richard Nichols, Queen Mary University, London
- Dr. James Cotton, Sanger Centre, Cambridge
- Dr. Steve Le Comber, Queen Mary University, London
Research projects
- Experimental evolution of the genetic code
- Multilevel selection in cancer and intragenomic conflicts
- Evolution of genetic systems, particularly breeding systems
- Funding from NERC and the Leverhulme Trust
Background
Member of:
- School Athena SWAN Committee
- University-wide committee to promote undergraduate research
Esteem Factors
- Member of Steering Committee of NERC Biomolecular Analysis Facility
- Editorial Board, Journal of Evolutionary Biology and Mobile Genetic Elements
- Plenary Speaker, "Genomic Consequences of Unconventional Sex", University of Cape Town
Selected publications
Pre 2006
L.J. Johnson, J. Antonovics and M. E. Hood. The evolution of intratetrad mating rates. Evolution 59: 2525-2532 (2005).
L. J. Johnson, V. Koufopanou, M. R. Goddard, R. Hetherington, S Schaeffer and A. Burt. Population genetics of the wild yeast Saccharomyces paradoxus. Genetics 166: 43-52 (2004).
L. J. Johnson and J. F. Y. Brookfield. Evolution of spatial expression pattern. Evolution and Development 5: 593-599 (2003).
L. J. Johnson and J. F. Y. Brookfield. Evolutionary dynamics of a selfishly spreading gene that stimulates sexual reproduction in a partially sexual population. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 15: 42-48 (2002).
Publications
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Kempster, C.
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Butler, G.
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Kuznecova, E.
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Taylor, K.
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Kriek, N.
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Little, G.
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Sowa, M.
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Sage, T.
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Johnson, L.
ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Gibbins, J.
ORCID: 0000-0002-0372-5352 , Pollitt, A. (2022) Fully automated platelet differential interference contrast image analysis via deep learning. Scientific Reports , 12 ISSN: 2045-2322 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08613-2
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Butler, G.
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Keeton, S.
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Johnson, L.
ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Dash, P. (2020) A phenotypic switch in the dispersal strategy of breast cancer cells selected for metastatic colonization. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 287 (1940). ISSN: 0962-8452 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2523
- Cascant-Lopez, E. , Crosthwaite, S. , Johnson, L. , Harrison, R. (2020) No evidence that homologs of key circadian clock genes direct circadian programs of development or mRNA abundance in Verticillium dahliae. Frontiers in Microbiology , 11 (1977). ISSN: 1664-302X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.01977
- Wass, A. , Butler, G. , Taylor, T. , Dash, P. , Johnson, L. (2020) Cancer cell lines show high heritability for motility but not generation time. Royal Society Open Science , 7 (4). ISSN: 2054-5703 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191645
- Taylor, T. , Wass, A. , Johnson, L. , Dash, P. (2017) Resource competition promotes tumour expansion in experimentally evolved cancer. BMC Evolutionary Biology , 17 ISSN: 1471-2148 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-017-1117-6
- Taylor, T. , Mulley, G. , McGuffin, L. , Johnson, L. , Brockhurst, M. , Arseneault, T. , Silby, M. , Jackson, R. (2015) Evolutionary rewiring of bacterial regulatory networks. Microbial Cell , 2 (7). pp. 256-258. ISSN: 2311-2638 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.15698/mic2015.07.215
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Taylor, T.
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Mulley, G.
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Dills, A.
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Alsohim, A.
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McGuffin, L.
ORCID: 0000-0003-4501-4767 , Studholme, D. , Silby, M. , Brockhurst, M. , Johnson, L.
ORCID: 0000-0002-0006-1511 , Jackson, R. (2015) Evolutionary resurrection of flagellar motility via rewiring of the nitrogen regulation system. Science , 347 (6225). pp. 1014-1017. ISSN: 0036-8075 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1259145
- Alsohim, A. , Taylor, T. , Barrett, G. , Gallie, J. , Zhang, X. , Altamirano-Junqueira, A. , Johnson, L. , Rainey, P. , Jackson, R. (2014) The biosurfactant viscosin produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 aids spreading motility and plant growth promotion. Environmental Microbiology , 16 (7). pp. 2267-2281. ISSN: 1462-2920 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.12469
- Taylor, T. , Johnson, L. , Jackson, R. , Brockhurst, M. , Dash, P. (2013) First steps in experimental cancer evolution. Evolutionary Applications , 6 (3). pp. 535-548. ISSN: 1752-4571 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eva.12041
- Johnson, L. , Cotton, J. , Lichtenstein, C. , Elgar, G. , Nichols, R. , Polly, P. , Le Comber, S. (2011) Stops making sense: translational trade-offs and stop codon reassignment. BMC Evolutionary Biology , 11 (1). ISSN: 1471-2148 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-11-227
- Jackson, R. , Johnson, L. , Clarke, S. , Arnold, D. (2011) Bacterial pathogen evolution: breaking news. Trends in Genetics , 27 (1). pp. 32-40. ISSN: 0168-9525 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2010.10.001
- Johnson, L. (2010) Pseudogene rescue: an adaptive mechanism of codon reassignment. Journal of Evolutionary Biology , 23 (8). pp. 1623-1630. ISSN: 1010-061X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02027.x
- Johnson, L. and Tricker, P. (2010) Epigenomic plasticity within populations: its evolutionary significance and potential. Heredity , 105 (1). pp. 113-121. ISSN: 0018-067X | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2010.25
- Johnson, L. , Giraud, T. , Anderson, R. , Hood, M. (2010) The impact of genome defense on mobile elements in Microbotryum. Genetica , 138 (3). pp. 313-319. ISSN: 1573-6857 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10709-009-9419-2
- Johnson, . (2008) Selfish genetic elements favor the evolution of a distinction between soma and germline. Evolution , 62 (8). pp. 2122-2124. ISSN: 0014-3820 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00433.x
- Johnson, . (2008) Transposon silencing: the extraordinary epigenetics of a transposon trap. Heredity , 100 (1). pp. 5-5. ISSN: 1365-2540 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sj.hdy.6801064
- Johnson, . (2007) The genome strikes back: The evolutionary importance of defence against mobile elements. Evolutionary Biology , 34 (3-4). pp. 121-129. ISSN: 0071-3260 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11692-007-9012-5
- Antonovics, . , Abbate, . , Baker, . , Daley, . , Hood, . , Jenkins, . , Johnson, . , Murray, . , Panjeti, . , Rudolf, . , Sloan, . , Vondrasek, . (2007) Evolution by any other name: antibiotic resistance and avoidance of the E-word. PLoS Biology , 5 (2). pp. e30. ISSN: 1544-9173
- Johnson, . and Brookfield, . (2006) A test of the master gene hypothesis for interspersed repetitive DNA sequences. Molecular Biology and Evolution , 23 (2). pp. 235-9. ISSN: 0737-4038 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msj034
- Brookfield, . and Johnson, . (2006) The evolution of mobile DNAs: when will transposons create phylogenies that look as if there is a master gene?. Genetics , 173 (2). pp. 1115-23. ISSN: 0016-6731 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1534/genetics.104.027219