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Biographical Memoirs Volume 91 (2009) / Chapter Skim
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VERNON ROBERT YOUNG
Pages 350-365

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From page 351...
... He was a key investigator in the series of studies that revealed the inadequacy of the 1973 Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization Recommended Allowance for human protein requirements and the research that corrected this serious error. Later his innovative use of stable isotopes showed that the estimated essential amino acid requirement levels universally accepted since the 1940s were much too low.
From page 352...
... ADDITIONAL ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS In addition to his professorship at MIT Young served as associate program director of the MIT Clinical Research Center, 1985-1987, and director of research for the Shriners Burns Institute, 1987-1990. Additional appointments in Boston at the time of his death included lecturer in surgery, Harvard
From page 353...
... NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL LECTURESHIPS AND COMMITTEES Young's named lectureships included the Vickers Lecture of the British Neonatal Health Science Center, San Antonio, 1986; the American Society for Nutritional Sciences McCollum Award Lecture, 1987; Burns Lecture, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Scotland, 1990; Brackenridge Lecture, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, 1996; Bruce and Virginia Street Lecture in Preventive Nutrition, University of North Texas, Fort Worth, 1996; Ninth Annual Malcolm Trout Lecture, Michigan State University, 1997; Rudolf Schonheimer Centenary Lecture, Nutrition Society of U.K.,1998; first David Murdock Lecture in Nutrition, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, 1998; Jonathan Roads Lecture, American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. 1999; Hans Fischer Lecture, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 1999; and W
From page 354...
... He chaired the Nutrition Implementation Committee, National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Prevention from 1998 until 2004. Among the many national committees to which Young contributed were the Food and Drug Administration Board of Inquiry on aspartame, 1978; the National Institutes of Health Nutrition Study Section, 1981-1985, and numerous ad hoc study sections; the NIH Consensus Panel on Health Risks, the Children's Nutrition Research Center at Baylor University, Houston, 1985; National Academy of Sciences Committee on Diet and Health,1986-1987; USDA Council of Scientific Advisors, Houston; Scientific Advisory Committee, Pennington Medical Center, Baton Rouge, 1991-1998; National Dairy Council, 1994-1998; and the Basic Science Implementation Subcommittee, National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Prevention, 1998-2004.
From page 355...
... HUMAN OBLIGATORY NITROGEN LOSSES AND PROTEIN REQUIREMENTS Together with Nevin Scrimshaw and their many graduate students, Young guided a series of studies that measured the variations in adult obligatory nitrogen losses as the basis for predicting adult protein requirements. This work, complemented by that of Doris Calloway at the University
From page 356...
... PROTEIN QUALITY STUDIES An extended series of studies explored nitrogen absorption and retention in human subjects and yielded improved procedures for the use of nitrogen balance in the assessment of the quality of dietary proteins. The initial work on cereal proteins demonstrated the progressively higher percent retention of absorbed nitrogen as protein intake decreased below requirement levels.
From page 357...
... With minor adjustment the value that they proposed was adopted by the 1985 FAO/WHO/UNU Joint Expert Consultation on ProteinEnergy Requirements with a profound effect on estimates of protein deficiency in developing countries and on nutrition, agriculture, and health policy. REVISION OF HUMAN AMINO ACID REQUIREMENTS Young's most recent and most important work was to pioneer the use of stable isotopes in studies of human nutrition, leading to the development of methods to build on and replace nitrogen balance as the approach for the assessment of protein and amino acid requirements.
From page 358...
... This was further extended to demonstrate enhanced rates of protein synthesis and breakdown in children suffering from burns that provided a metabolic explanation for the greatly increased protein requirement of a burned patient. Using different stable isotope probes, Young and his colleagues elucidated the age- and disease-related changes in amino acid, glucose, and fatty acid metabolism.
From page 359...
... Using this approach over a 24-hour period during the postabsorptive or fed states, he was able to determine the requirement of amino acids and the levels of intake that would achieve amino acid balance. He is credited with developing the 24-hour indicator amino acid balance approach widely used today to determine amino acid requirements in health and disease.
From page 360...
... He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and the Institute of Medicine in 1993. Other awards and honors include the 1973 Mead Johnson Award and the 1983 Borden Award from the American Institute of Nutrition; the 1987 McCollum Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research from the American Society for Clinical Nutrition; the 1997 Rank Prize in Nutrition, U.K.; the 1991 Gopalan Oration and Gold Medal, Nutrition Society of India; the 1995 the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement, U.S.; the 1996 Roger Williams Award in Preventive Nutrition; the 1997 Danone International Prize for Nutrition (France)
From page 361...
... In 1997 he received a doctor of medicine honoris causa from Uppsala University, Sweden, and the 1999 Award of Excellence from the Alumni Association of the University of California, Davis. Since its founding in 1982, Young was a board member and officer of the International Nutrition Foundation, which has extensive international fellowship programs and publishes the Food and Nutrition Bulletin on behalf of the United Nations University.
From page 362...
... 362 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS Sackler, who established the Medical Tribune newspaper: "Art is a passion pursued with discipline and science is a discipline pursued with passion. Passion is the engine that drives creativity." This latter well describes Vernon.
From page 363...
... Plasma amino acid response curve and amino acid requirements in young men: Valine and lysine.
From page 364...
... 97:85-110. 1981 Dynamics of human whole body amino acid metabolism: Use of stable isotope probes and relevance to nutritional requirements.
From page 365...
... Nitrogen and amino acid requirements: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology amino acid requirement pattern.


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