A scientist with a distinguished career in drug development has donated securities to establish a new professorship at Kansas University.

Irving S. Johnson, a 1953 graduate of KU with a degree in biology, donated more than $507,500 to the professorship in molecular biology. The money will be added to funds previously donated by the Hall Family Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., bringing the professorship fund to $1 million.

“This is a wonderful gift for our biosciences program,” Chancellor Robert Hemenway said in a statement. “This gift will help KU attract and retain an outstanding researcher and professor in a field that is undergoing rapid changes and expansion. The professorship will be another asset in KU’s efforts to be at the forefront of life sciences research.”

Johnson, who now lives in Sanibel, Fla., spent 35 years working at Eli Lilly and Co., including 15 years as vice president of research at the company. He helped discover a class of drugs that fight lymphoma in children, and oversaw development of the drug Prozac.

Also among his accomplishments:

• Serving as one of nine members of the U.S. delegation to the National Science Foundation that reviewed the biological effect of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II.
• Conducting some of the clinical trials for the Salk polio vaccine.
• Directing the first program to manufacture drugs using genetic modification.

Johnson now serves as a consultant in biomedical research and is on the boards of Ligand Pharma of San Diego, Calif., and Coastside Bio Resources in Stonington, Maine.

Johnson said he struggled doing research at KU because the university didn’t have a large program in experimental biology.

“That’s the main reason I want to establish this professorship, so that future students will not have to go through my experience,” Johnson said. “I want KU to have the people to train students to do the things I wanted to do but that weren’t supported at KU at the time.”