Howard Young

Howard Young, Ph.D., is Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Experimental Immunology in the Cancer and Inflammation Program, as well as Principal Investigator and Head of the Cellular and Molecular Immunology Section at the NCI Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Young has expertise in the regulation and characterization of cytokine gene expression with a special emphasis on interferons. The Young laboratory has as its major focus how disruption of the control of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) gene expression during development and maturation of the cellular immune system impacts the host inflammatory response and the development of autoimmune disease and cancer. In addition, the laboratory is investigating a new cancer vaccine strategy utilizing tumor antigens engineered to adhere to the surface of probiotic microorganisms as a strategy to present these antigens to the gut and lung mucosal interfaces.

Posts By This Author

10 Questions with NIH Senior Investigator Howard Young

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Highly talented scientists underlie the innovative biomedical research conducted at the NIH IRP. I asked one of them, Dr. Howard Young, Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Frederick, Maryland, campus, about how the environment of opportunity, access to resources, and proximity to cutting-edge science influences his work.

How Asking a Very Basic Research Question Led Us to a Model For At Least 3 Diseases

Monday, January 12, 2015

When I started this project, it was not my objective to develop a model for any specific disease, nor did I even suspect that the ultimate result would be some insight into autoimmune disease. The basic research question I was asking was why there are sequences in the 3’ untranslated region of the interferon-gamma mRNA that are more highly conserved than the coding region of the gene.