{"doi":"10.1093/gerona/glab050","title":"Career Retrospective: Tom Johnson—Genetics, Genomics, Stress, Stochastic Variation, and Aging","abstract":"Here we reflect on the highly influential career of Thomas “Tom” E. Johnson and his contributions to gerontology. Tom is considered the father of genetic gerontology because he proved the previously contentious notion that life span can be very significantly influenced by single genes. Tom went on to characterize the aging process holistically with genomics. Moreover, Tom’s laboratory made significant and lasting discoveries demonstrating that the prevention and repair of somatic damage determines life span. Finally, Tom found a way to study the origins and consequences of stochastic components of aging, arguably uncovering the first robust biomarker and predictor of aging. Johnson’s contributions form the bedrock of an entire subfield in biology, and are also the foundation of the current revolution in biomedical research that is targeting the aging processes to prevent age-related chronic diseases, from Alzheimer’s to cancer. From simple experiments on aging in nematode worms, a new biotechnology...","journal":"The Journals of Gerontology Series A","year":2021,"id":197140,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9358,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":228996,"name":"Gordon J. Lithgow","orcid":"0000-0002-8953-3043","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":2137,"name":"Stuart Kim","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":653745,"name":"David J. Friedman","orcid":"0000-0002-0301-9298","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":770450,"name":"Breanne L. Newell‐Stamper","orcid":"0000-0002-5098-1965","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":770451,"name":"Thomas E. Johnson","orcid":"0000-0003-4073-938X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":535435,"name":"Alexander Mendenhall","orcid":"0000-0002-4716-7671","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:19.568641Z","pmid":"33609361","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}