Biography:Wendy Young

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Wendy B. Young, Ph.D.
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUSA
Alma materWake Forest University (B.S., M.S.)
Princeton University (Ph.D.)
Scientific career
Doctoral advisorEdward C. Taylor

Education

Young received her B.S. and M.S. from Wake Forest University, working with Prof. Huw Davies.[1] She was co-author on an early application of Davies' rhodium(II) carbenoid insertion - Cope rearrangement chemistry, leading to the total synthesis of three small tropane natural products.[2] Young received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 1993, working with Edward C. Taylor on heterocycles[3] derived from natural pigments, one of which ultimately became pemetrexed[4] (Alimta),[5] an oncology treatment. In her postdoctoral fellowship with Samuel Danishefsky, Young was among one of a handful of groups in the mid-1990s to synthesize paclitaxel (Taxol),[6] a highly-oxygenated terpenoid natural product used to treat cancer.

Career

Despite multiple employment offers on the East Coast of the United States,[1] Young chose to remain in the San Francisco Bay Area for her professional career. From 1995 to 2006, Young worked at Celera Genomics, studying inhibitor compounds of human plasma proteins[7] such as kallikrein and Factors VIIa and IXa. She was recruited to Genentech in 2006, and in 2018 was promoted to Senior Vice President of Small Molecule drug discovery.[1] One of her major research successes was development of a chemistry campaign against Bruton's tyrosine kinase, leading to molecules to potentially treat rheumatoid arthritis and B-cell lymphomas.[8] Her team developed fenebrutinib, currently in Phase II clinical trials for several autoimmune disorders.[9] In 2023, she became an advisor at Google Ventures.

Awards

  • 2020 - ACS Earle B. Barnes Award in Chemical Management[10]
  • 2020 - Wake Forest Distinguished Alumni Award[11]
  • 2018 - ACS Fellow[12]
  • 2018 - William S. Johnson Symposium, Stanford University[13]
  • 2017 - Elected Chair of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Division[14][15]
  • 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

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Genentech. "The Molecule Maker". Genentech: Breakthrough science. One moment, one day, one person at a time.. https://www.gene.com/stories/the-molecule-maker. 
  2. ↑ Davies, Huw M. L.; Saikali, Elie; Young, Wendy B. (1991). "Synthesis of (.+-.)-ferruginine and (.+-.)-anhydroecgonine methyl-ester by a tandem cyclopropanation/Cope rearrangement" (in EN). The Journal of Organic Chemistry 56 (19): 5696–5700. doi:10.1021/jo00019a044. ISSN 0022-3263. 
  3. ↑ "HeteroCycles" (in en). https://www.heterocycles.jp/newlibrary/libraries/abst/05123. 
  4. ↑ "Princeton chemist Edward C. Taylor, inventor of anti-cancer drug, dies at 94" (in en). Princeton University. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/29/princeton-chemist-edward-c-taylor-inventor-anti-cancer-drug-dies-94. 
  5. ↑ "Alimta Monograph for Professionals - Drugs.com" (in en-US). Drugs.com. https://www.drugs.com/monograph/alimta.html. 
  6. ↑ Masters, John J.; Link, J. T.; Snyder, Lawrence B.; Young, Wendy B.; Danishefsky, Samuel J. (1995-09-01). "A Total Synthesis of Taxol" (in en). Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English 34 (16): 1723–1726. doi:10.1002/anie.199517231. ISSN 0570-0833. 
  7. ↑ Tang, Jie; Yu, Christine Luong; Williams, Steven R.; Springman, Eric; Jeffery, Douglas; Sprengeler, Paul A.; Estevez, Alberto; Sampang, Jun et al. (2005-12-09). "Expression, Crystallization, and Three-dimensional Structure of the Catalytic Domain of Human Plasma Kallikrein" (in en). Journal of Biological Chemistry 280 (49): 41077–41089. doi:10.1074/jbc.M506766200. ISSN 0021-9258. PMID 16199530. 
  8. ↑ Wang, Xiaojing; Barbosa, James; Blomgren, Peter; Bremer, Meire C.; Chen, Jacob; Crawford, James J.; Deng, Wei; Dong, Liming et al. (2017-05-03). "Discovery of Potent and Selective Tricyclic Inhibitors of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase with Improved Druglike Properties". ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters 8 (6): 608–613. doi:10.1021/acsmedchemlett.7b00103. ISSN 1948-5875. PMID 28626519. 
  9. ↑ "A Study to Evaluate the Long-term Safety and Efficacy of Fenebrutinib in Participants Previously Enrolled in a Fenebrutinib Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria (CSU) Study - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov" (in en). https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03693625. 
  10. ↑ "Earle B. Barnes Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management Recipients" (in en). https://www.acs.org/funding/awards/earle-barnes-award-for-leadership-in-chemical-research-management/past-recipients.html. 
  11. ↑ "DR. WENDY YOUNG (BA’88, MS’89) DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARD RECIPIENT" (in en). https://chemistry.wfu.edu/alumni/dr-wendy-young-ba88-ms89-distinguished-alumni-award-recipient/. 
  12. ↑ "2018 ACS Fellows" (in en). https://www.acs.org/funding/awards/acs-fellows/fellows/2018-fellows.html. 
  13. ↑ "Wendy Young, Genentech | William S. Johnson Symposium" (in en). https://johnsonsymposium.stanford.edu/wendy-young-genentech. 
  14. ↑ "Genentech: Wendy Young | Senior Vice President, Small Molecule Drug Discovery". https://www.gene.com/scientists/our-scientists/wendy-young. 
  15. ↑ "Executive Committee". https://www.acsmedchem.org/?nd=ecmembers. 



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