MSU lets medical doctor research microbial ecology
It wasn't until he went to college at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that Vincent Young discovered his interest in research. And it wasn't until he came to MSU that he realized his interest crossed into departments many medical doctors wouldn't dream of studying. Young, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine/Infectious Diseases at the College of Human Medicine and the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, is working on microbial ecology research, studying bacteria communities. However, Young is trained as a medical doctor, and the other researchers often work with bacteria in the soil, not in the human body. "We had to do a lot of convincing of the National Institute of Health that a person who is normally working in soil can contribute to medical fields," Young said about the struggle acquiring the grant he recently received from the institute. For Young, the idea of being a medical doctor originated growing up in Buffalo, NY. "When I was little, I was always thinking, 'You know, it would be kind of fun to be a doctor because you're going to help people,' and research wasn't anything I was exposed to when I was little," he said. So the idea to be both a doctor and a researcher came when he discovered the MD/doctorate programs that exist, which train students as both doctors and scientists, he said. "It's the idea that I learned both about the disease - and in medical school you have to learn a bit about the basic science of the disease - but I realized ? how did people find all this so we can try to design new therapies or have a new understanding of disease?" Young said, adding that he did an MD/doctorate program at Stanford University. For Young, the best part of the job is the social aspect. "If you just look at the type of research I do where I'm collaborating with people in crop and soil sciences and microbiology - for me, some of the best things about coming to work is when I get together with my colleagues and we get to talk about the science," he said. Basics of Research: For most of Young's career, he has been focusing his studies on disease-causing bacteria located in the human gastrointestinal tract.
