Professor Rick Young speaks about his ground-breaking genetics research at a Gates Cambridge Distinguished Lecture

  • May 3, 2012

Named one of the top 50 leaders in science, technology and business by Scientific American, Professor Young’s lecture, Genetics, Epigenetics and Future Medicine, took place on 19th October 2011 at Magdalene College.

Professor Young is a Member of the Whitehead Institute and a Professor of Biology at MIT. He studies the gene regulatory circuitry that controls cell state in humans and animals. Among his scientific accomplishments is the discovery of the core regulatory circuitry of human embryonic stem cells. This regulatory circuitry controls developmental processes that are key to human health and disease.

Professor Young received his BSc degree in Biological Sciences at Indiana University, his PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford. He has served as an advisor to Science magazine, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization. He has founded and advised companies in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. His honours include a Burroughs Wellcome Scholarship, the Chiron Corporation Biotechnology Research Award, and Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal.

Latest News

Understanding the complexity of PTSD

How do you improve treatments for patients who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Nimrod Hertz [2022] and Alicja Podgorski, Gates Cambridge Scholars from different cohorts, have combined forces […]

Report focuses on new forms of leadership in a fragmented world

A new white paper co-authored by a Gates Cambridge Scholar and citing Gates Cambridge’s Provost calls for new forms of leadership, governance and strategy to address the current period of […]

Celebrating the Gates Cambridge Weekend

Scores of Gates Cambridge Scholars from across 25 cohorts and from countries around the world came together for the Gates Cambridge Weekend from Friday to Sunday. The weekend of events […]

The Gates Cambridge Conversation: Food security in an age of climate crisis

Food security has been much in the news in the wake of the Middle East and other conflicts as well as in light of the ongoing climate crisis. It’s an […]