Michael W. Young

Biosketch

Michael Young is Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Genetics at The Rockefeller University. From 2004-2023 he was also the University’s Vice-President for Academic Affairs. Along with colleagues Jeffrey Hall and Michael Rosbash, he received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of molecular mechanisms that control circadian (daily) rhythms. Young received a B.A. in biology in 1971 and a Ph.D. in genetics in 1975, both from The University of Texas at Austin. His graduate work examined gene sizes and distributions in the chromosomes of Drosophila. He moved to Rockefeller in 1978, following postdoctoral work on transposable elements in the Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of Medicine. At Rockefeller Young’s research has focused principally on the molecular biology of circadian rhythmicity.

Research Interests

Young has used the fruit fly, Drosophila for his studies of the circadian clock. The clock gene period was isolated by Young in 1984 and screens in his laboratory have identified five additional genes that are each essential for production of circadian rhythms. Interactions among these genes, and their proteins, contribute to a network of molecular oscillations within single cells. Young’s discovery and characterization of timeless showed that it permits movement of the transcription factor Period to the nucleus only at night, establishing daily rhythms of period, timeless and other gene activities within the clock. Timeless was also found to be a light-sensitive protein, explaining how circadian rhythms align with environmental day/night cycles. Young’s studies of the clock genes double-time and shaggy, casein kinase 1 and GSK-3 orthologs respectively, showed these affect the period length of the rhythm by controlling phosphorylation and stability of Period and Timeless. Most of the clock genes discovered by Young and his colleagues in Drosophila are also central to the circadian pathways of vertebrates, including humans, where they promote rhythmic expression of roughly half the genome.