How Bacteria-Infecting Viruses Could Save Lives

Dr. Ry Young. Credit: Texas A&M University. “My parents told me that I already wanted to be a scientist when I was 7 or 8 years old. I don’t remember ever considering anything else,” says Ry Young, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry, biophysics, and biology at Texas A&M University, College Station. Dr. Young has been a researcher for more than 45 years and is a leading expert on bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria. He and other scientists have shown that phages, as bacteriophages are often called, could help us fight bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics. Antibiotic-resistant infections cause more than 35,000 deaths per year in the U.S., and new, effective treatments for them are urgently needed. Starting Out in Science Dr. Young knew he wanted to study biology from the time he read a children’s book about Louis Pasteur. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Rice University, Houston, Texas, and was about to start a Ph.D. program when he received a draft notice from the military. Dr. Young spent 3 years in the Navy and read biology textbooks in his spare time. Bacteriophages. Credit: David Gregory and Debbie Marshall. CC BY 4.0. After completing his military service, Dr. Young entered a molecular biology Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he conducted his doctoral research on the control of bacterial ribosome synthesis. He used phages as tools to move DNA between bacteria, bu...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Injury and Illness Bacteria Infectious Diseases Profiles Scientific Process Viruses Source Type: blogs