Thanks to Howard for sharing this article. He has had an amazing career as a cancer research scientist and is highly respected and much-loved by those who have been fortunate enough to work with him.
Howard Young Brings Light to the Serious Side of Science
By Kaylee Towey, WHK Student Intern; photos by Richard Frederickson, Staff Photographer, plus contributed images
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
 |
Young receives an award at the Werner H. Kirsten Student Intern Program (WHKSIP)
25th Anniversary Symposium and Awards Ceremony. |
You
know what they say about all work and no play. And without a doubt,
science requires constant hard work. But the NCI at Frederick has an
antidote to the serious side of science: Howard Young.
Young,
Ph.D., Senior Investigator, Cancer and Inflammation Program, is a
serious scientist in his own right. He was part of the team that
characterized and cloned the RAS oncogene, he developed a mouse model of
lupus, and he was the first to show a clear sex bias, similar to that
seen in patients, in what has been called the best mouse model for
primary biliary cholangitis.
But Young also works hard to play hard every now and then.
First,
there’s Young’s “Food Offense,” a novel disciplinary approach for
rehabilitating laboratory minions whose bench-side antics interrupt
progress and cause tension in the lab. The famous “Food Offense” was
published in the NIH Catalyst and became a standard in other
labs. According to the “Food Offense,” if someone does something to
interrupt or inconvenience another in the lab, the offending party is
required to bring in food—preferably containing chocolate, a request
aimed to satisfy Young’s insistent sweet tooth—or, alternately, to get
another job.
A
sign above Young’s door reads: “A balanced diet is having chocolate in
each hand.” And Young isn’t kidding when it comes to his cocoa, even
asking those who accidently call his phone to send him the sweet treat.
Ram Savan, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Immunology,
University of Washington, recalled Howard “propos[ing] experiments to
study the medicinal properties of chocolate.”
But chocolate isn’t Young’s only love.
When
Young was in sixth grade, he visited the Museum of Natural History in
New York City and bought a hippo souvenir at the gift shop,
kick-starting his collection of more than 200 figurines of the most
dangerous animal in Africa. Many of the hippos in his office were gifts,
including one that traveled all the way from Uganda, courtesy of an
intern who had a hippo hand-carved during her trip back home. Another
postdoc went to India and brought Young back a gift—but to his surprise,
it was a rhino that the postdoc had mistaken for a hippo. Also adorning
Young’s office are faces carved into wood, Japanese fish prints, and
other knickknacks from around the world. Out of all the places he has
visited for meetings—Great Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany,
and Australia, just to name a few—Young’s favorite destination was
Shanghai.
Displayed
alongside his collectibles are Young’s many distinguished awards,
including the Honorary Lifetime Membership Award for the International
Cytokine and Interferon Society and the Distinguished Service Award.
Young was also nominated for and received the
National Public Service Award for his involvement in student programs
and was elected president of the International Society for Interferon
and Cytokine Research.
Young
became involved in science after being encouraged by his science
teachers and realizing that “science was something I could do, so I
better stick with it.” After majoring in microbiology, he was encouraged
to come to the NIH by a former grad student with whom he had worked at
UMass. Throughout his career, he has worked in the Chairman of the
Microbiology Department's lab at the University of Massachusetts, then
in graduate school at the University of Washington, followed by stints
in NCI Bethesda and Frederick research labs. His current work focuses on
cellular immunology with a special emphasis on the biology of
interferon-gamma. But Young confessed that his heart truly lies with NCI
at Frederick, because at Frederick, “science is not a job, as you are
part of a community that works together.”
It’s
not surprising that a sense of community can be felt in Young’s lab.
Della Reynolds, who worked with Young for 28 years, recalled how Young
was always part of the “party lab” and was “a great organizer.” Reynolds
told stories of Halloween competitions with Young dressed up as Lurch
from The Addams Family or a pumpkin from Snoopy. One year,
when Young was away for Halloween, the whole lab dressed up as him.
Young also emcees the office holiday party luncheon. Daniel McVicar,
Ph.D., deputy director for basic science in the Cancer and Inflammation
Program, said, “[Young] is fantastic and really is responsible for it
being a fun outing.”
Reynolds
also credits Young for “always [being] supportive of trying to get
people into science.” Jay Bream, Ph.D., associate professor, Department
of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health, agreed, saying Young “took it upon himself to do something
about it despite the considerable costs in time and effort, [and]
marched to the beat of his own drum, giving people a kind of supportive
freedom to explore new ideas.”
Young
believes that freedom increases morale and allows everyone to help one
another succeed. It has also paved the way for many of his contributions
to NCI at Frederick, including the WHK Student Intern Program, the
Summer Student Seminar Series, the Spring Research Festival, the Take a
Hike event, the summer Student Poster Day, the Green Team Plant
Exchange, the Frederick Faculty Seminar Series, and the summer Student
Jeopardy Tournament. Furthermore, he raised $50,000 in just 30 minutes
by asking three NIH Scientific Directors and the NIH Office of Women’s
Health to contribute to a meeting on mouse models of lupus. The cost
proved to be less than $50,000, and the leftover money was used to
organize four additional meetings focused on women’s health issues.
“You
have to give back to the community,” Young said. “I think seeing the
interns in the WHK program succeed, whether establishing their own
research labs or becoming practicing physicians, has shown me that the
program is accomplishing what it initially hoped to do and is one that
the entire Frederick community can be proud of.”
Young’s
influence was perhaps best summarized by Savan, who said, “I want my
lab to be a place where people can share their lives together, and [my
colleagues] view me with the same respect that I view Howard.”
