History:
The Young lab lab was started in 1978 as when Ry was the first tenure-track faculty hired in Garret Ihler’s Department of Medical Biochemistry in the new TAMU College of Medicine. At the time, the departments of the new medical school were scattered in borrowed space throughout the Main Campus in the old Herman Heep Dairy Science Building, with Medical Biochemistry occupying the ground floor of the Herman Heep Dairy Science Building. The Young lab moved with the rest of the department across the railroad tracks to the fourth floor of the new Reynolds Building in the summer of 1983, and then moved back across the tracks to the Heep Building in 1986, when Ry moved to the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The last move, again across the tracks, was in 1989, to the new Biochemistry and Biophysics Building. Each of these moves was chaotic and time-consuming; the students, technicians and post-doc’s who managed them are the real heroes.
From its inception, the Young lab group has been focused on bacteriophage biology, with an emphasis on the genes and proteins involved in host lysis, the terminal event in the phage infection cycle. Because this necessarily involves studying membrane phenomena and membrane proteins, students use a wide variety of techniques, including genetics, cell biology, biochemistry, genomics, and also collaborate intimately with laboratories involved in structural biology. Upon the CPT’s establishment by the Board of Regents in May, 2010, the lab has become a charter member of TAMU’s new and unique Center for Phage Technology, dedicated to translational applications of phage biology in combating bacteria in the clinic, in agriculture and in industry. Phage biology is known for being a good medium for graduate training, largely because of the facile molecular genetics associated with paradigm phages like lambda and T4, making hypothesis generation and testing a rapid and rigorous process. In the 35 years since the first Ph.D. was won by Janetta Garret in 1980, Young lab grad students have earned 26 doctorates (Biochemistry, Biology and Genetics) and 7 Masters degrees. The lab currently has 5 doctoral students.
Doctorates earned in the Young lab:
| Janetta Garrett | Biochemistry | 1980 | Professor and former Chair of Biology, Hamilton College, Clinton NY |
| Ronald Raab | Biology | 1988 | Professor, Dept. of Integrated Sciences and Technology, James Madison U., Harrisonburg, VA |
| Michael Williams | Biochemistry | 1994 | Partner, ADE & Company, Patent and Trade-Mark Agents, Winnipeg, Manitoba |
| Kie Bang Nam | Gen | 1991 | staff scientist, H. Levin laboratory, NIH; deceased |
| Chung-Yu Chang | Biol | 1994 | Research Associate, University of Texas-Houston Medical School |
| C. Kay Holtman | Biol | 1996 | retired |
| David Smith | Biochemistry | 1998 | Exiqon Diagnostics |
| Angelika Gründling | Microbiology, U. Vienna | 2000 | Prof., Imperial College London |
| Erlan Ramanculov | Biochemistry | 2001 | Director, Life Science and Biotechnology Center of Excellence, Astana, Kazakhstan |
| Thomas Bernhardt | Biochemistry | 2001 | Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School |
| John Deaton | Biochemistry | 2004 | VP Technology, Deerland Enzymes |
| Min Xu [Pennella] | Biochemistry | 2004 | Chemist III, Sigma Aldrich |
| Taehyun Park | Biochemistry | 2006 | Post-doctoral Associate, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University, New York |
| Tram Van Anh Tran | Biochemistry | 2007 | Research associate, Dept. of Developmental Biology, UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX |
| Carrie Langlais | Biochemistry | 2007 | Senior Regulatory Scientist, Rho, Inc. |
| Rebecca White | Biology | 2008 | Director of Cultivation and Site Manager, Integrated Algal BioRefinery, Sapphyre Energy |
| Brenley McIntosh | Biology | 2008 | Departmental Liaison at MIT Open Course Ware |
| Yi Zheng | Biochemistry | 2009 | ??? |
| Joel Berry | Biochemistry | 2009 | Research Associate, Institut Pasteur, Paris |
| Ting Pang | Biochemistry | 2010 | Research Associate, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation, Harvard University |
| Jill Dewey | Biochemistry | 2010 | Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, U. St. Thomas, Houston |
| Gabriel Everett | Biochemistry | 2011 | Research Associate, Center for Phage Technology, TAMU |
| Catrina Reed | Biochemistry | 2012 | Ward/Ober Laboratory Manager, Texas A&M Health Science Center |
| Samir Moussa | Biology | 2012 | Research Associate, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA |
| Kenneth To | Biology | 2013 | Molecular Genetics Review Analyst, Gene Dx |
| Manoj Rajaure | Biochemistry | 2015 | Research Associate, NCI, Bethesda MD |