The Ryland F. Young III Lecture in Biochemistry was established to honor his many
achievements and given annually in the Spring.

Getting to know the speaker Dr. Carol Gross is a Professor and Vice-Chair of Microbiology &
Immunology and a Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology at The
University of California, San Francisco. Her research is genetic,
biochemical, and systems approaches to study regulatory mechanisms
of E. coli stress responses, protein interactions in the bacterial
transcription apparatus, and genome-wide control of gene expression.
Dr. Gross works on the regulation of the E. coli stress response, protein
interactions in the bacterial transcription apparatus, and genomic
analysis of gene expression using E. coli microarrays. She received her
Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
and holds advance degree in Biology (MA).

Getting to know the host Dr. Ryland Young, Growing up in Dallas, Ry Young did his undergraduate work first at CalTech and
then Rice, winning an NSF Graduate Fellowship upon graduation in
Biochemistry in 1968. His graduate work at MIT was interrupted by the draft,
leading to 3 years in the Navy. Returning to graduate school, he earned a Ph.D.
in Molecular Biology under Hans Bremer at the University of Texas at Dallas in

His doctoral work focused on control of ribosome synthesis in E. coli and
led to 205 publications, on which basis he was awarded an NIH Postdoctoral
Fellowship. His post-doctoral work was under Mike Syvanen at Harvard
Medical School and marked his permanent commitment to phage biology. He
was hired as the first assistant professor in the Department of Medical
Biochemistry at Texas A&M in 1978. He moved to Biochemistry and Biophysics
in 1986, where he was promoted to University Distinguished Professor in 2018.
His focus has been on the molecular mechanisms by which phage cause lysis
of the bacterial host. He retired in 2022 after 46 consecutive years of
competitive NIH funding, including the College’s first MERIT Award in 1996.

Pictured Left to Right: Dr. Josh Wand, University Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department, Dr. Carol Gross, Professor and Vice-Chair of Microbiology &
Immunology and a Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology at The University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Ryland Young University Distinguished Professor; Professor Emeritus, after Dr. Gross gave her seminar over the topic From Genes to Mechanisms: Deciphering bacterial
genomes at scale.
Dr. Carol Gross Professor and Vice-Chair of Microbiology &
Immunology and a Professor of Cell and Tissue Biology at The University of California, San Francisco, with the Undergraduate Honor Students.