Damian W. Young, Ph.D.
Damian W. Young, Ph.D.
Baylor College of Medicine
Titles & Positions
  • Assistant Director, Center for Drug Discovery

  • Co-Director, Therapeutic Innovation Center

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology
Institutional & Related Links

Profile

Biography

Grant Information
Grant ID: R1314
Grant Mechanism: 
Recruitment of First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Members
Recruited From: 
The Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date Awarded: 
January 24, 2014
Grant Amount: 
$2,000,000

Damian W. Young graduated from Howard University with a B.S. degree in chemistry. After completing his undergraduate studies, he worked as a process chemist at Trimeris Inc. in Durham, N.C. where he made key contributions to the synthesis of the drug Fuzeon, the first FDA approved HIV viral fusion inhibitor.

Young then attended NC State University and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, under the guidance of Daniel L. Comins, focusing on the total synthesis of the lycopodium alkaloid spirolucidine.

He then performed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in the laboratory of Stuart L. Schreiber working in the area of diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS). Young took a position as a Group Leader within the Chemical Biology Platform at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT where he led efforts to produce more than 50K small molecules for screening. Furthermore, he was the first to apply concepts of DOS and chemical diversity to the area of fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD). Young was recruited from the Broad Institute to Baylor College of Medicine in 2014.