Dr. Karl M. Johnson, world famous virologist and adjunct professor of medicine and biology at UNM, was recently awarded Panama's highest scientific honor.
Johnson has helped isolate many viruses such as Ebola and Hantavirus, and in October, he was awarded the Manuel Amador Guerrero Medal of Science by Dr. Fernando Gracia, minister of health in Panama.
The medal was established on the 50th anniversary of Panama's independence and was named after the country's first president. It is the highest medal the country gives in the science field.
Johnson said he heard about the medal but never thought he'd receive such an award.
"I was overwhelmed; I could not believe it," Johnson said holding his mouth open as if he had just heard.
Johnson earned his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and his master's degree from the University of Rochester in New York.
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Johnson says that after completing two years of residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, he was drafted into the Public Health Service during the Korean War and worked for the National Institutes of Health for two years.
"I didn't have to wash dishes or listen to 3 a.m. phone calls from mothers who were worried about their children, but I didn't get paid too much," Johnson said.
In 1962, Johnson went to Panama to work in a small lab established by the National Institutes of Health to study tropical diseases that affected the area.
While working in Panama, Johnson said he isolated and named the Machupo virus, which causes the Bolivian hemorrhagic fever.
He also controlled disease by implementing a rodent control program and led many research teams that study viruses ranging from severe clinical yellow fever to the Arenavirus.
"I went for two years and it turned into 13," Johnson said.
Johnson said that many of his studies had to be in Spanish, which became especially challenging.
"Their Spanish is much faster than here," he said, rolling his tongue. "They cut the endings of every word and form one long sentence."
After his work in Panama, Johnson worked for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta in 1975 where he acted as chief of the Special Pathogens Branch in the Virology Division. During that time Johnson also named and isolated the Ebola virus.
He worked for two pharmaceutical companies, Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc., based out of Nutley, N.J., and Viratek, Inc., based out of Costa Mesa, Calif., where he conducted clinical trials and supervised post-marketing surveillance of a viral aerosol therapy.
The culture, people and perfect winters are what Johnson says brought him to New Mexico. However, his wife, Merle, says the Hantavirus studies, which required his help at UNM, are what originally brought him here.
"The reason they called me is I used to write the chapters of the medical textbooks about Hantavirus because I was with two Korean doctors who isolated the first Hantavirus," Johnson said.
He said that he plans to retire in New Mexico and built an adobe home in 1999, which he says was on his list of things to do in life.
"As you can see I live on Calle Final," Johnson said, "That means we don't plan on going anywhere else."
Though Johnson does not teach, he helps people write grant proposals at the University and is on the committee for PhDs at the medical school.
He said he is writing a book about his experiences in Panama, which he hopes to finish this winter.
