User:GOC2020/Anne B. Young

Edited

Anne Buckingham Young is an American physician and neuroscientist who has made major contributions to the study of neurodegenerative diseases, her main focuses are Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. Young completed her undergraduate studies at Vassar College and earned a dual degree in medicine and research at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Additionally, she has held faculty positions at University of Michigan and Harvard University, and was appointed the first female Chief of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1991. Young is the only person to have been president of both the international Society for Neuroscience and the American Neurological Association. She retired from this role and from clinical service in 2012.

Edited - Early and personal life

Young grew up in Evanston, a suburb located on the North Shore of Chicago. Her parents were both involved in science; her father studied chemistry at Harvard and her mother studied physics at Vassar College. Growing up her feisty nature earned her the nickname of "Tiger Annie," among family and friends. As a result, her parents placed her in prep school to keep her out of trouble. Throughout her life, she has struggled with reading due to dyslexia. She completed her undergraduate studies in chemistry, with minors in art history and philosophy, at Vassar College and worked in a laboratory where she developed an interest in biochemistry. While in an MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins, Young met her first husband, Jack B. Penney Jr, with whom she had two daughters Jessica and Ellen. They pursued similar fields of study and collaborated in their research and medical work until Penney's death in 1999. After Penney’s death, Young struggled with depression and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, while continuing to run the department of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now retired from her postion at the hospital, and married to her high school boyfriend Stetson Ames.

Edited-Johs Hopkins

After graduating from Vassar, Young enrolled in Johns Hopkins Medical School as one of nine women in her class of 110. Lectures were mostly men and professors would show nude pictures and cartoons of women were shown during class for entertainment. Young grew annoyed of this sexist behavior and one day decided to switch out the one of the pictures with a nude of a man to embarrass the lecturer. Young also met her husband Jack her first year and they continued their relationship while both pursuing careers in Neurology.

Young spent a year and a half completing her required medical school courses and clerkships. During the PhD portion of her graduate studies, Young worked with Professor Solomon Snyder on preliminary analyses of potential neurotransmitters, such as homocarnosine and homoanserine. Data from Young’s lab was the first suggesting glutamate as a neurotransmitter in cerebellar granule cells. She also worked with GABA receptors and found a way to detect inhibitory amino acid receptors using neurotoxins. Young worked on many projects during her time at Johns Hopkins and collaborated with several other in the researchers in the neurology department. She graduated with her MD in 1973 and her PhD in Pharmacology in 1974 with ten publications under her belt.

Edited-UCSF

Young applied for internship and residency programs at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She was accepted to the UCSF residency program and matched with an internship at nearby Mt. Zion Hospital in 1975. Young completed her residency alongside her husband, Jack, and became pregnant during her second year at UCSF. In her third year she was chosen as chief resident of her class. After completing their residency the couple found jobs at the University of Michigan and began in 1978.

Edited-University of Michigan

Mentored by the head of neurology, Young began to write grants and began working on positron emission tomography studies of Huntington’s Disease. Young wrote her first grant while completing her residency and decided to focus on spinal cord spasticity. She received funding for her first grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Later that year Young gave birth to their second daughter.

Jack and Anne partnered in all of their research and clinical work as the directors of the University of Michigan Movement Disorders Clinic. The couple took on specific roles, Anne was the expert in pharmacology and physiology and he was the expert in stereotactic surgery, computer programs, and statistics. In the clinic Young focused on hyperkinetic disorders like Huntington's and Tourette’s syndrome, while Jack focused on hypokinetic disorders like Parkinson’s. The couple pioneered research on the basal ganglia’s involvement in these movement disorders. Their research identified a pathway in the cortex that acts on striatal cells. This pathway was predicted to be defective in Huntington's and Parkinson’s patients. They published their theory in 1986 in Movement Disorders and continued to investigate the problem. Evidence and hypothesis from their publication led to the development of deep brain stimulation, a treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. In 1989 they published their work proposing a new model of the basal ganglia’s involvement in Huntington's and Parkinson’s in Trends in Neuroscience. A faculty position at University of Michigan is named in her honor, the Anne B. Young Collegiate Professor of Neurology.

Edited - Mass Gen

Young was recruited and appointed to Chair of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in 1991. She became the first female chief in the hospital’s history and the first female chief of neurology at a teaching hospital in the United States.

Edited-MIND

Young and her husband moved to Boston and continued to study neurodegenerative diseases as Chief of Neurology at Mass. General Hospital. Many of the labs at MGH were also studying neurodegenerative diseases, and Young recognized the benefit that would come from bringing these labs together. She brought her proposal to convert a nearby Navy building in Charlestown to a lab space dedicated to the study of Neurodegenerative diseases to hospital administrators. Her proposal received funding as and the Mass General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND) was established. MIND seeks to have a broad focus to study not only the cause of these diseases, but also to develop effective therapeutic techniques. Another important aspect of MIND that Young helped to foster is collaborative teamwork between researchers. MIND has made many contributions to research of neurodegenerative diseases, including a role in the discovery of the gene for Huntington’s disease.