Brian Johnson

Brian Johnson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology and Biomedical Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU), affiliated with the College of Veterinary Medicine. His research focuses on environmental toxicology, drug discovery, and computational biology, with a particular emphasis on using microphysiological models to study developmental toxicity and endocrine disruption. He leads the Johnson Digital Bioengineering Lab at the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering (IQ), where his team develops innovative in vitro models to predict chemical effects on human health.

Education includes a PhD in Molecular and Environmental Toxicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2013) and a BS in Biological Sciences from Michigan Technological University. After completing a postdoc in Biomedical Engineering at UW-Madison (2020), he joined MSU.

Research interests include modeling orofacial clefting, thyroid hormone disruption, and the development of high-throughput screening platforms. Key projects funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) focus on AHR signaling in developmental toxicity and environmental biomolecular responses. Recent achievements include a $50,000 Complement-ARIE Challenge Prize for work on teratogenicity modeling.

Lab activities include mentoring students in BME and Pharmacology PhD programs, undergraduate research, and industry collaborations. Notable lab milestones include patent filings for microplate micromilling techniques and student presentations at national conferences. The lab’s equipment includes high-content confocal imagers and CNC micromilling systems for rapid prototyping.