Wendy Young facts for kids
Wendy B. Young is an advisor at Google Ventures and a former senior vice president of small molecule drug discovery at Genentech. She is a well-known scientist who has helped discover new medicines.
Quick facts for kids
Wendy B. Young, Ph.D.
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| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | USA |
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
| Scientific career | |
| Doctoral advisor | Edward C. Taylor |
What is Wendy Young's Background?
Wendy Young studied at Wake Forest University for her first degrees (B.S. and M.S.). There, she worked with Professor Huw Davies. They explored new ways to create chemical compounds, which helped in making certain natural products.
She then earned her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1993. Her work with Edward C. Taylor focused on special chemical structures called heterocycles. One of these structures later became a medicine called pemetrexed (Alimta), used to treat cancer.
After her Ph.D., Wendy Young did more research with Samuel Danishefsky. During this time in the mid-1990s, she was part of a team that created paclitaxel (Taxol). This is a complex natural product also used to fight cancer.
What Has Wendy Young Done in Her Career?
Even though she had job offers from other places, Wendy Young decided to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area. From 1995 to 2006, she worked at Celera Genomics. Here, she studied compounds that could stop certain human plasma proteins from working.
In 2006, she joined Genentech, a major biotechnology company. By 2018, she became the Senior Vice President of Small Molecule Drug Discovery. This means she led teams that found new small molecules to become medicines.
One of her biggest achievements was developing new chemicals to target a protein called Bruton's tyrosine kinase. This research led to molecules that could potentially treat diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and certain types of lymphoma. Her team developed a drug called fenebrutinib, which is currently being tested in people for autoimmune disorders. In 2023, she became an advisor at Google Ventures.
What Awards Has Wendy Young Received?
Wendy Young has received many awards for her important work:
- 2020 - ACS Earle B. Barnes Award in Chemical Management
- 2020 - Wake Forest Distinguished Alumni Award
- 2018 - ACS Fellow
- 2018 - William S. Johnson Symposium, Stanford University
- 2017 - Elected Chair of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Division
- 2015 - "Most Influential Woman of 2015" - San Francisco Business Times
- 1995 - American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship
- 1993 - H.W. Dodds Top Thesis Award, Princeton University
