Young Lab

Artificial intelligence (AI) is part of everyday life and has innumerable uses — from summarizing a book or designing a poster, to recommending a TV show or parking your car. But how can AI be useful in biology? In this video narrated by Whitehead Institute Member Rick Young, learn how scientists are taking advantage of AI to greatly accelerate biological discoveries.

Henry Kilgore is a postdoc in Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young’s lab working on understanding how protein chemistry influences where in the cell proteins localize. We sat down with Henry to learn more about him and his experiences in and out of the lab.

Our latest Research Highlights video features three exciting new findings from Whitehead Institute: New work from the Jaenisch lab helps explain bats' impressive resistance to viruses; researchers in the Young lab identify a common denominator underlying chronic disease states; and researchers in the Cheeseman lab identify precise regulatory mechanisms controlling the production of protein variants during mitosis.

Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young and colleagues have created a machine learning model that can predict in which cellular compartments a protein will reside, generate proteins to reside in a desired compartment, and detect disease mutations that alter cellular compartments, with implications for understanding and remedying disease.  

Chronic diseases such as diabetes are on the rise and are costly and challenging to treat. Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young and colleagues have discovered a common denominator driving these diverse diseases, which may prove to be a promising therapeutic target: proteolethargy, or reduced protein mobility, in the presence of oxidative stress.

In order for researchers to understand the biology of living organisms, they must consider what is happening across the size scale. Interactions between molecules drive interactions between cells that affect traits and behaviors. Experiences and decisions made by the organism can lead to changes at the cellular and molecular level. In order to understand the full picture, Whitehead Institute researchers study everything from molecules to cells to whole organisms.

Researchers at Whitehead Institute are employing cutting-edge techniques that combine layers of data — from the function of individual genes to the interactions of all molecules within a living organism — to investigate biological phenomena with unprecedented depth and breadth. Their efforts are yielding a richer understanding of the mechanisms involved in health and disease.

Researchers in Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young’s lab and colleagues at MIT show that a machine learning model can predict which subcellular compartments a drug will concentrate in based on its chemical features. This could be used to design safer and more effective drugs, and to understand how subcellular compartments govern diverse biochemical processes.

Transcription factors bind DNA and protein. Now, researchers in Whitehead Institute Member Richard Young’s lab find that many transcription factors can also bind RNA, which fine tunes their regulation of gene expression, suggesting new therapeutic opportunities.