Elementary School

What is Physiology?
Questions 
   Physiologists Ask
Explore Physiology
Meet a Physiologist
Careers Brochure
Minority Resources
Educators & Outreach
Related Links

John H. “Wick” Johnson was born in Dallas, TX. When he was little, he loved fish and fishing. He wanted to learn everything about all the types of fishes. He wanted to know whether they lived in fresh or salt water, with plants or rocks, what they ate and who ate them, and anything else about them. He ended up learning a lot about how their bodies worked (physiology). He got a rod and reel for his 10^th birthday and fished anytime he could. He read everything on fish he could get his hands on. When he was 12, his family moved so near a stream and lake that he could ride his bike to it. Also that year, he got a fly rod as a present. That meant he could learn how to tie flies. For this, he had to learn a lot about the insects that live around water so that he could tie a proper looking insect. He had to learn how insects are put together (anatomy), since that can be different for different insects. This is something he stills likes to do even today with his wife. They fly fish for everything from sunfish in fresh water to tarpon and sailfish in salt water.

An English Major Playing Sports
Wick chose to go to college at Oklahoma State University in order to be able to play basketball under a very famous coach there. He studied English in college. He discovered his interest in science in a strange way. At the end of his 3^rd year of college, he found out that he had all the classes he needed for his English degree. So as a fun and different thing to do, he took a class on cell biology.

It ended up being the most interesting course he had taken in college to date. This was because of the way the class was taught and the fact that he was studying English not science. The teacher talked about the people who discovered new things in cell biology and how they did it. It was a hard class and a lot of work, but it was the most interesting class he had ever had. He started taking a lot of science classes and one year after he got his English degree, he got a second degree in science.

Changing Career Paths
Dr. Johnson’s career path has been a road that has had a lot of turns. He is still not sure whether he chose which turn to take or whether the path chose him. In 1996, he was asked by Parke-Davis (a drug company) to come work there and do research on diabetes.

Just after moving there, he also got asked to help out in a new area. He got made part of a group that was trying to figure out how to find drugs that might work on diseases, get them tested so see if they do work, get them approved by the government, and then get them made and to the doctors. He had no idea of how it all worked and really no idea of just how much all that cost a company, even if the drug didn’t end up working.

He also got asked to help deal with other companies that Parke-Davis worked with. This meant he needed to sit down with them and figure out all the details about money, time, and who owned what when it came to the drug.

Then after a couple years, his company joined with another company. The new company, Pfizer, asked Dr. Johnson to take a new job where he wouldn’t be doing any research and just all the other things that related to finding new drugs and getting them all the way through the process into doctor’s hands. He had really liked getting the chance to learn how to do those things and so he agreed to the new job.

For Fun
When he’s not working, Dr. Johnson and his wife both love to fly fish. He also plays golf whenever he can. 

Dr. Johnson has been a coach for youth basketball for the YMCA and Boy’s Clubs. He has also been on the Board of Trustees for the Hands-On Science Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.