Dr. Young grew up in Tasmania, Australia. She went to school at the University of Tasmania and graduated with a Bachelor in Biotechnology majoring in Plant Science. However, her honor’s thesis focused on Radiotherapy Response in Prostate Cancer and Biomarkers.
From here, she became motivated to impact human health through translational research and chose to continue that trajectory during her Ph.D. at the University of Queensland in 2013. The focus of her Ph.D. was to improve the immune system’s ability to kill cancer, through the use of different combinations of cancer immunotherapies. However, this can also lead to a number of side-effects, which appear to be similar to autoimmune diseases (including diabetes, thyroid disorders, and colitis), an area which Dr. Young studied during her postdoc at the University of California San Francisco.
When it came to deciding where to go next, Dr. Young needed a place that could support her research program that includes cancer, immunology, diabetes, and metabolism. The Department of Pathology and Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah checked all the boxes.
One of her main goals is to connect different immune responses that an individual may have been exposed to within their lifetime (due to autoimmune disease, infection, allergies and pregnancy), to determine optimal treatments for cancer patients. Dr. Young plans to do this by incorporating clinical resources available at the U alongside unique preclinical models that she has developed.
Dr. Young is excited to be in Utah. It is the first time she has lived in the snow; shoveling the driveway is still a novelty for her. She and her husband love to hike and are keen wildlife spotters. She is also a big fan of English crime dramas and karaoke.
