Kris Johnson
· Assistant Professor of MusicUniversity of Michigan · Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation
Active 1968–2024
About
Kris Johnson is an acclaimed trumpeter, composer, and educator originating from Detroit. His professional career encompasses a diverse portfolio including music, film scores, musical theater, and education. He has composed several musicals such as "Jim Crow's Tears" and "Hastings Street: The Musical," scored films including the Emmy-nominated web series "King Ester," and produced personal projects like The Kris Johnson Group and #looptherapy. Johnson is also the founder and director of the Paradise Theatre Big Band through the Detroit Symphony. With contributions to six GRAMMY-nominated albums as a trumpeter and arranger, including the 2024 GRAMMY-winning "Basie Swings the Blues" by the Count Basie Orchestra, he is a recognized figure in the industry. His career highlights include touring globally with Endea Owens and the Cookout since 2023, and performing with the Count Basie Orchestra from 2008-2019 at prestigious venues such as the Apollo Theater, Hollywood Bowl, Sydney Opera House, and Kennedy Center. Johnson has collaborated with notable musicians including Wynton Marsalis, Tony Bennett, Leslie Odom Jr., and Wycliffe Gordon. Currently, he serves as an Assistant Professor of Jazz Trumpet at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. His educational background includes a Bachelors and Masters in Jazz Studies from Michigan State University, obtained in 2005 and 2007 respectively. He has held positions such as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Utah, Project Director for the Pontiac School District, Education and Digital Programming Manager for the Motown Museum, and Executive Director of the MSU Community Music School-Detroit. Johnson has also served on faculty at The Ohio State University and Detroit Symphony Orchestra Civic Youth Ensembles, and as an Artistic Liaison for JazzEd Detroit.
Research topics
- Internal medicine
- Gastroenterology
- Medicine
- Biology
- Pathology
- Immunology
- Biochemistry
Selected publications
Toxicological Sciences · 2024-11-06 · 6 citations
articleOpen accessSerum activities of alanine- and aspartate aminotransferases (ALT and AST) are considered the "gold standard" biomarkers of hepatocyte injury in clinical practice and drug development. However, due to the expression of ALT and AST in myocytes, the diagnosis of hepatocellular injury in patients with underlying muscle diseases, including drug-induced muscle injury, is severely limited. Thus, we proposed glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) as a liver-specific alternative to serum ALT and AST. In fact, our exploratory studies showed that GLDH has comparable performance to ALT for detecting hepatocyte injury without interference from concomitant muscle injury. Here, we report the results of studies confirming the reference intervals in a healthy human population and the sensitivity and specificity of GLDH for the detection of hepatocyte injury in human subjects. In human subjects, we could not perform liver biopsies due to ethical reasons; we also confirmed the relationship of GLDH and histopathologic lesions using 32 model toxicants in rats. Furthermore, we have shown that injury to tissues that are known to express appreciable levels of GLDH does not affect serum GLDH measurements, indicating excellent liver specificity of serum GLDH. Finally, we observed faster elimination of GLDH than ALT in humans, indicating that decreasing GLDH values could be considered an early sign of recovery. This study provides comprehensive evidence of excellent sensitivity and liver specificity of GLDH for diagnosis of hepatocellular injury, including evaluation of reference intervals, which is essential for the interpretation of serum GLDH in human subjects.
SAE International Journal of Advances and Current Practices in Mobility · 2022-03-29 · 5 citations
article<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">Goods movement and port related activities are a significant source of emissions in many large urban areas. Electrification of diesel cargo handling equipment is one method of reducing community exposure to these emissions, that also provides the potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This study evaluated the performance of several pieces of zero emission cargo transfer equipment for a demonstration conducted at two terminal locations at the Port of Long Beach (POLB). This included the data logging of three battery-electric top handlers and one battery-electric yard tractor, as well as two baseline diesel top handlers and one diesel yard tractor. The battery-electric equipment typically operated about 5 hours per day, while using between 34 to 50% of the battery pack state of charge (SOC). In general, the battery-electric equipment was able to provide comparable hours of operation to the diesel equipment over a typical 8-hour shift. The electrical top handlers and the electric yard tractor were equipped with 931 and 220 kWh batteries, respectively. Over the same period of operation, the battery-electric equipment provided considerable benefits in total energy consumption, using on average 66.9 and 56.9 kWh/hr for the top handlers at the main terminal location for their use. The diesel top handlers at terminal 1 averaged 204.8 and 139.1 kWh/hr. The electric yard tractor at terminal 2 on average used 15.2 kWh/hr while the diesel counterpart used 65.9 kWh/hr. The results suggest that the deployment of battery-electric equipment in port cargo handling operations could provide considerable benefits in terms of emissions reductions and energy consumption. The results also indicate that performance monitoring of the equipment as it is deployed will provide important feedback about the effectiveness of battery-electric equipment in different applications, which can be used to improve the designs of future generations of battery-electric equipment.</div></div>
Toxicological Sciences · 2021 · 37 citations
- Medicine
- Internal medicine
- Gastroenterology
Early diagnosis of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) continues to be a major hurdle during drug development and postmarketing. The objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of promising biomarkers of liver injury-glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH), cytokeratin-18 (K18), caspase-cleaved K18 (ccK18), osteopontin (OPN), macrophage colony-stimulating factor (MCSF), MCSF receptor (MCSFR), and microRNA-122 (miR-122) in comparison to the traditional biomarker alanine aminotransferase (ALT). Biomarkers were evaluated individually and as a multivariate model in a cohort of acetaminophen overdose (n = 175) subjects and were further tested in cohorts of healthy adults (n = 135), patients with liver damage from various causes (n = 104), and patients with damage to the muscle (n = 74), kidney (n = 40), gastrointestinal tract (n = 37), and pancreas (n = 34). In the acetaminophen cohort, a multivariate model with GLDH, K18, and miR-122 was able to detect DILI more accurately than individual biomarkers alone. Furthermore, the three-biomarker model could accurately predict patients with liver injury compared with healthy volunteers or patients with damage to muscle, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, and kidney. Expression of K18, GLDH, and miR-122 was evaluated using a database of transcriptomic profiles across multiple tissues/organs in humans and rats. K18 mRNA (Krt18) and MiR-122 were highly expressed in liver whereas GLDH mRNA (Glud1) was widely expressed. We performed a comprehensive, comparative performance assessment of 7 promising biomarkers and demonstrated that a 3-biomarker multivariate model can accurately detect liver injury.
ACR Open Rheumatology · 2021 · 15 citations
- Medicine
- Internal medicine
- Immunology
OBJECTIVE: Improved biomarkers of current disease activity and prediction of relapse are needed in antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV). For clinical relevance, biomarkers must perform well longitudinally in patients on treatment and in patients with nonsevere flares. METHODS: Twenty-two proteins were measured in 347 serum samples from 74 patients with AAV enrolled in a clinical trial. Samples were collected at Month 6 after remission induction, then every 3 months until Month 18, or at the time of flare. Associations of protein concentrations with concurrent disease activity and with future flare were analyzed using mixed-effects models, Cox proportional hazards models, and conditional logistic regression. RESULTS: Forty-two patients had flares during the 12-month follow-up period, and 32 remained in remission. Twenty-two patients had severe flares. Six experimental markers (CXCL13, IL-6, IL-8, IL-15, IL-18BP, and matrix metalloproteinase-3 [MMP-3]) and ESR were associated with disease activity using all three methods (P < 0.05, with P < 0.01 in at least one method). A rise in IL-8, IL-15, or IL-18BP was associated temporally with flare. Combining C-reactive protein (CRP), IL-18BP, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), and sIL-2Rα improved association with active AAV. CXCL13 and MMP-3 were increased during treatment with prednisone, independent of disease activity. Marker concentrations during remission were not predictive of future flare. CONCLUSION: Serum biomarkers of inflammation and tissue damage and repair have been previously shown to be strongly associated with severe active AAV were less strongly associated with active AAV in a longitudinal study that included mild flares and varying treatment. Markers rising contemporaneously with flare or with an improved association in combination merit further study.
Corporate religious diversity, equity, and inclusion as covenantal pluralism
2021-11-29 · 5 citations
book-chapterOpen accessSenior authorThis chapter describes how covenantal pluralism is advanced by the goals and operations of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly faith-oriented business programs. Many companies are beginning to understand the need for and benefits of expanding DEI with more faith-friendly initiatives. We first describe five main ways that faith-oriented DEI and covenantal pluralism are connected. We then present and unpack nine coaching points for companies interested in constructively opening the door to religious expression and embracing covenantal pluralism. We then offer evidence of how putting these principles into practice within a company benefits overall DEI across all categories of identity; and describe some of the best practices we’ve discovered in this area. We conclude by providing the first-ever tool for corporations to benchmark their efforts toward more religiously diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces.
American Journal of Case Reports · 2020-01-24 · 10 citations
articleOpen accessBACKGROUND Acetaminophen overdose is the most common cause of acute liver failure. Nevertheless, new biomarker approaches enabling early prediction of the outcome of the acetaminophen overdose are needed. Recently, using next-generation sequencing analysis of serum from human study participants we uncovered injury-specific signatures of circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) that represented underlying molecular mechanisms of toxicity. This case study is first to show the application of miRNA profiling to assess prognosis of acetaminophen poisoning. CASE REPORT The patient was admitted to the hospital following supra therapeutic acetaminophen ingestion. The patient showed elevated levels of biomarkers of hepatocellular injury alanine aminotransferase, aspartate transaminase, and glutamate dehydrogenase. Even though treatment with N-acetyl cysteine was initiated 24 hours post-ingestion, levels of alanine-aminotransferase and aspartate transaminase peaked at about 40 hours post ingestion of acetaminophen. We analyzed global circulating miRNA levels from 24 consecutive serum samples from this study participant covering the period from admission to time of death. CONCLUSIONS The resulting global miRNA profiles were compared with profiles from study participants with non-lethal acetaminophen poisoning and healthy controls. At the admission, the miRNA profiles of both lethal and non-lethal acetaminophen poisoning showed induction of cellular stress and oxidative damage. Later, the miRNA profiles of the lethal poisoning featured fibrosis and coagulation pathways while profiles of non-lethal cases resembled those of healthy study participants. Although additional confirmatory studies are needed, our case study is first to indicate that global miRNA profiles to be used as liquid biopsies have potential to facilitate the assessment of acetaminophen poisoning.
PLoS ONE · 2020 · 63 citations
- Internal medicine
- Medicine
- Gastroenterology
Serum activities of alanine and aspartate aminotransferases (ALT and AST) are used as gold standard biomarkers for the diagnosis of hepatocellular injury. Since ALT and AST lack liver specificity, the diagnosis of the onset of hepatocellular injury in patients with underlying muscle impairments is severely limited. Thus, we evaluated the potential of glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH) as a liver specific alternative biomarker of hepatocellular injury. In our study, serum GLDH in subjects with Duchene muscular dystrophy (DMD) was equivalent to serum GLDH in age matched healthy subjects, while serum ALT was increased 20-fold in DMD subjects. Furthermore, serum GLDH in 131 subjects with variety of muscle impairments was similar to serum GLDH of healthy subjects while serum ALT corelated with serum creatine kinase, a widely accepted biomarker of muscle impairment. In addition, significant elevations of ALT, AST, and CK were observed in a case of a patient with rhabdomyolysis, while serum GLDH stayed within the normal range until the onset of hypoxia-induced liver injury. In a mouse model of DMD (DMDmdx), serum GLDH but not serum ALT clearly correlated with the degree of acetaminophen-induced liver injury. Taken together, our data support the utility of serum GLDH as a liver-specific biomarker of liver injury that has a potential to improve diagnosis of hepatocellular injury in patients with underlying muscle impairments. In drug development, GLDH may have utility as a biomarker of drug induced liver injury in clinical trials of new therapies to treat muscle diseases such as DMD.
Cancer Research · 2019-07-01
articleAbstract Introduction As the need for multiple biomarker assessment in immune-oncology has become more clear, multiplex fluorescent immunohistochemistry (fIHC) techniques have become integral to immune oncology research. Applying multispectral approaches to fIHC improves the quantitative performance by ensuring removal of autofluorescence signals and ensuring signal specificity by removing bleed-through between spectrally-adjacent dyes. We have recently demonstrated a novel high-throughput multispectral scanning approach that allows acquisition of a 7-color multispectral slide scan in 5 - 10 minutes. Here, we demonstrate the spatial measurements that have now been made possible by this high-throughput, translational workflow. These measurements span the scales related to tumor biology from the distance between nearest cell neighbors to the extent of the invasive margin. Methods Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of primary tumors were immunostained using Opal™ reagents. Tissue sections from primary tumors (lung, melanoma, colorectal, lymphoma)were stained against 5 markers of key interest in the field of immune oncology (CD8, FoxP3, PD-1, PD-L1, CD68) along with a tumor marker (Cytokeratin, Sox10&S100, PAX5 or PAX8) and DAPI counterstain, resulting in 7 colors on each slide. Conventional and multispectral digital scans were acquired on a Vectra Polaris® automated imaging system and analyzed with inForm® and R software using the phenoptr and phenoptrReports packages. Results Multispectral scans showed a wide variety of immunological states among samples and within samples. We observed differences in the overall composition and density of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, and further distinctions when looking at the local proximities of cell types and cells expressing either PD-1 or PD-L1, based on marker combinations that could not be observed with a conventional 3- or 4-color slide scan. We developed spatial analyses to visualize and quantify this observed heterogeneity, both across the entire tissue and along the invasive margin. These tools revealed hot spots of immune activity and were further used to compare and categorize the properties of different tumors. Furthermore, when compared with results from analogous scans analyzed without spectral unmixing, the unmixed imagery showed a marked improvement in the dynamic range of detected positive cells. Conclusion These tools for spatial analyses of whole-section 7-color multispectral slide scans provide translational researchers the opportunity to discover and validate biomarkers that capture immuno-biological interactions at microscopic and macroscopic scales, to better understand drug method-of-action and why some patients respond and some don’t. Citation Format: Carla Coltharp, Kent Johnson, Wenliang Zhang, Chichung Wang, Kristin Roman, Daniel Eversole, Clifford Hoyt, Peter Miller. Quantifying tumor heterogeneity and mapping complex immune cell interactions with high-throughput, 7-color multispectral slide scans [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 153.
Evaluation of Potential Serum Biomarkers of Disease Activity in Diverse Forms of Vasculitis
The Journal of Rheumatology · 2019-09-01 · 32 citations
articleOpen accessOBJECTIVE: We evaluated potential circulating biomarkers of disease activity in giant cell arteritis (GCA), Takayasu arteritis (TA), polyarteritis nodosa (PAN), and eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA). METHODS: A panel of 22 serum proteins was tested in patients enrolled in the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium Longitudinal Studies of GCA, TA, PAN, or EGPA. Mixed models were used for most analyses. A J48 classification tree method was used to find the most relevant markers to differentiate between active and inactive GCA. RESULTS: Tests were done on 418 samples from 152 patients (60 GCA, 29 TA, 26 PAN, 37 EGPA), during both active vasculitis and remission. In GCA, these showed significant (p < 0.05) differences between disease states: B cell-attracting chemokine 1 (BCA)-1/CXC motif ligand 13 (CXCL13), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), interferon-γ-induced protein 10/CXC motif chemokine 10, soluble interleukin 2 receptor α (sIL-2Rα), and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1). In EGPA, these showed significant increases during active disease: granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), granulocyte-macrophage-CSF, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-15, and sIL-2Rα. BCA-1/CXCL13 also showed such increases, but only after adjustment for treatment. In PAN, ESR and matrix metalloprotease (MMP)-3 showed significant differences between disease states. Differences in biomarker levels between diseases were significant for 11 markers and were more striking (all p < 0.01) than differences related to disease activity. A combination of lower values of TIMP-1, IL-6, interferon-γ, and MMP-3 correctly classified 87% of samples with inactive GCA. CONCLUSION: We identified novel biomarkers of disease activity in GCA and EGPA. Differences of biomarker levels between diseases, independent of disease activity, were more apparent than differences related to disease activity. Further studies are needed to determine whether these serum proteins have potential for clinical use in distinguishing active disease from remission or in predicting longer-term outcomes.
Tumor Biology · 2019-07-01
articleOpen accessIntroductionAs the need for multiple biomarker assessment in immune-oncology has become more clear, multiplex fluorescent immunohistochemistry (fIHC) techniques have become integral to immune oncology research.Applying multispectral approaches to fIHC improves the quantitative performance by ensuring removal of autofluorescence signals and ensuring signal specificity by removing bleed-through between spectrally-adjacent dyes.We have recently demonstrated a novel high-throughput multispectral scanning approach that allows acquisition of a 7-color multispectral slide scan in 5 - 10 minutes.Here, we demonstrate the spatial measurements that have now been made possible by this high-throughput, translational workflow. These measurements span the scales related to tumor biology from the distance between nearest cell neighbors to the extent of the invasive margin.MethodsFormalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of primary tumors were immunostained using Opal™ reagents. Tissue sections from primary tumors (lung, melanoma, colorectal, lymphoma)were stained against 5 markers of key interest in the field of immune oncology (CD8, FoxP3, PD-1, PD-L1, CD68) along with a tumor marker (Cytokeratin, Sox10&S100, PAX5 or PAX8) and DAPI counterstain, resulting in 7 colors on each slide.Conventional and multispectral digital scans were acquired on a Vectra Polaris® automated imaging system and analyzed with inForm® and R software using the phenoptr and phenoptrReports packages.ResultsMultispectral scans showed a wide variety of immunological states among samples and within samples. We observed differences in the overall composition and density of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, and further distinctions when looking at the local proximities of cell types and cells expressing either PD-1 or PD-L1, based on marker combinations that could not be observed with a conventional 3- or 4-color slide scan.We developed spatial analyses to visualize and quantify this observed heterogeneity, both across the entire tissue and along the invasive margin. These tools revealed hot spots of immune activity and were further used to compare and categorize the properties of different tumors.Furthermore, when compared with results from analogous scans analyzed without spectral unmixing, the unmixed imagery showed a marked improvement in the dynamic range of detected positive cells.ConclusionThese tools for spatial analyses of whole-section 7-color multispectral slide scans provide translational researchers the opportunity to discover and validate biomarkers that capture immuno-biological interactions at microscopic and macroscopic scales, to better understand drug method-of-action and why some patients respond and some don’t.Citation Format: Carla Coltharp, Kent Johnson, Wenliang Zhang, Chichung Wang, Kristin Roman, Daniel Eversole, Clifford Hoyt, Peter Miller. Quantifying tumor heterogeneity and mapping complex immune cell interactions with high-throughput, 7-color multispectral slide scans [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 153.
Recent grants
NIH · $1.9M · 1999
NIH · $21.9M · 2011
NIH · $14.8M · 2009
NIH · $581k · 1990
Frequent coauthors
- 80 shared
Nader D. Nader
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
- 79 shared
Roscoe L. Warner
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 64 shared
Ronald B. Hirschl
C. S. Mott Children's Hospital
- 51 shared
Paul R. Knight
University of Nottingham
- 48 shared
Bruce A. Davidson
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
- 47 shared
Gerd O. Till
- 41 shared
Robert H. Bartlett
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 40 shared
Peter A. Ward
Massachusetts General Hospital
Awards & honors
- 6 GRAMMY-nominated albums as a trumpeter and arranger
- 2024 GRAMMY-winning "Basie Swings the Blues" by the Count Ba…
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