Her mother had read biochemistry and physiology at University College London in the 1930s and was supportive of Johnson's decision to pursue a scientific career.

She went to University College London in 1959 to read Physics and coming from an all-girls school, she was surprised to find herself one of only four girls in a class of 40.

[citation needed] Her graduate supervisor was David Chilton Phillips, whose team was working on the crystal structure of lysozyme.

[citation needed] Her first task was to determine the structure of a sugar molecule, N-Acetylglucosamine, using x-ray diffraction, which she solved within a year.

[7] After her post-doctoral year at Yale, she returned to the UK in 1967 and took up the post of Departmental Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.

Johnson was able to combine teaching with independent research and continued her work on lysozyme and new crystal studies on other enzymes.

Her research was directed towards understanding the molecular basis of the biological properties of control and catalytic mechanism.

Johnson's lab at Oxford solved and studied many other protein structures, and she is a depositor on 100 PDB entries including many forms of glycogen phosphorylase[8] and of cell cycle CDK/cyclin complexes[9] As well as carrying out cutting-edge research, she nurtured numerous careers, training a generation of crystallographers in Oxford who themselves now train future leaders across the world.

[15][16] Louise Napier Johnson was born on 26 September 1940 at South Bank Nursing Home, Worcester, as the second of three daughters of George Edmund Johnson (1904–1992), a wool broker then serving in the Royal Air Force, and his wife, Elizabeth Minna, née King (1914–1992).