A photo of Howard Chang in a dress shirt and purple sweater.
Photo courtesy of Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Why do long hairs grow on our scalp, but not on our palms or the soles of our feet? How do cells decide where they should be located in the body? Unconventional questions such as these — in particular, those with a direct connection to human diseases — drive the research of Howard Y. Chang. A passion for finding the answers has led to the discovery of a number of far-reaching insights into gene regulation.

With a disciplined mind even as a teenager, Dr. Chang, born in Taipei, Taiwan, remembers well the shock of his first day in junior high school in Southern California, where his family moved when he was 12 years old. Initially he made do with a vocabulary gleaned from watching ‘80s sitcoms. By high school, he had resolved to improve his English by joining the debate team, and came to relish the freedom in America to argue both sides of an issue.

He went on to earn his bachelor’s in biochemical sciences from Harvard University in 1994. He then joined the Harvard-MIT MD-PhD program, and together with MIT Professor David Baltimore discovered several key biochemical control mechanisms of how cells self-destruct, which have important applications in the study of cancer, autoimmunity, and degenerative diseases.

While pursuing medical training in dermatology, Dr. Chang began his postdoctoral research in Professor Patrick Brown’s lab at Stanford University. There, he began a new research program to understand the basis of site-specific differences in human skin, resulting in novel modes of gene control that extends from cancer treatment to aging. The breakthroughs made by Dr. Chang and his colleagues may suggest new approaches for the treatment of malignant tumors.

Dr. Chang is a prolific and acclaimed writer, having published more than 60 papers in such journals as Nature, >Cell, Science, Nature Genetics, PLoS Genetics, and more. He is also a member of the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Center.

 

Awards and Accomplishments

  • Research Scholar Award, American Cancer Society (2007)
  • Scholar Award, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (2006-2008)
  • Clinical Scientist Career Development Award (K08), NIH (2004-2009)
  • Physician-Scientist Career Development Award, Dermatology Foundation (2004)
  • Young Investigator Award, American Academy of Dermatology (2003)

Jury Members

2009 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Heran Darwin

Assistant Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Laurie Dempsey

Senior Editor, Nature Immunology

Peter Palese

Professor and Chair, Microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Jan Vilcek

Professor of Microbiology, New York University School of Medicine

Leslie Vosshall

Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chemers Family Associate Professor, The Rockefeller University

Nicholas Wade

Science Department, The New York Times

Jedd Wolchok

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Associate Director, Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Related Prize Recipients

2012 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Alice Ting

Born in Taiwan
Alice Ting receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for developing sophisticated tools for the detection and visualization of individual biomolecules, such as proteins, DNA, and RNA, within cells at high spatial and temporal resolution and for mapping functional networks of biomolecules within cells.
Alice Ting
2020 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Kivanç Birsoy

Born in Turkey
Kıvanç Birsoy receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for developing cutting-edge tools to unravel the altered metabolism of cancer cells and uncovering molecular targets for treatment.
Portrait of Kivanc Birsoy
2014 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

Antonio Giraldez

Born in Spain
Antonio Giraldez receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for uncovering molecular mechanisms underlying embryonic development, which unfolds after fertilization of egg cells, and unveiling the dynamic role of tiny snippets of RNA called microRNAs in this process.
Antonio Giraldez

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