Whitehead Institute Member Richard A. Young has been elected to the United States National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Academy of Engineering, the NAM provides objective, evidence-based advice to the nation, under a congressional charter. Election to the NAM is considered one of the highest honors for U.S. medical practitioners, public health leaders, and biomedical researchers.
“I am humbled to have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine,” says Young, who is also a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “More than just a personal honor, it is an affirmation of the importance of basic biomedical research to understanding, preventing, and treating disease.” Young was elected to the NAS, as well, in 2012.
“Rick Young embodies Whitehead Institute’s ongoing commitment to pursuing innovative and courageous science with long-term impact on the health of our nation and our world,” says David C. Page, director of Whitehead Institute.
Young’s research focuses on mapping the regulatory circuitry that controls cell state and differentiation—using experimental and computational technologies to determine how signaling pathways, transcription factors, chromatin regulators, and small RNAs control gene expression. Since defects in gene expression can cause diabetes, cancer, hypertension, immune deficiencies, neurological disorders, and other health issues, improved understanding of this circuitry should lead to new insights into disease mechanisms and the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics.
