Lauren J. Young is associate editor for health and medicine at Scientific American. She has edited and written stories that tackle a wide range of subjects, including the COVID pandemic, emerging diseases, evolutionary biology and health inequities. Young has nearly a decade of newsroom and science journalism experience. Before joining Scientific American in 2023, she was an associate editor at Popular Science and a digital producer at public radio’s Science Friday. She has appeared as a guest on radio shows, podcasts and stage events. Young has also spoken on panels for the Asian American Journalists Association, American Library Association, NOVA Science Studio and the New York Botanical Garden. Her work has appeared in Scholastic MATH, School Library Journal, IEEE Spectrum, Atlas Obscura and Smithsonian Magazine. Young studied biology at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, before pursuing a master’s at New York University’s Science, Health & Environmental Reporting Program.
Why Drugs Like Ozempic Can Make People Drink Less Alcohol
A small study helps explain why some people taking Wegovy and similar weight-loss drugs cut back on alcohol, offering insight into potential new addiction therapies
Champions of Caring
Advocates are lightening mental health burdens, improving pregnancy care and helping patients in developing countries
Shimon Sakaguchi Reflects on How Hunting for a Mysterious T Cell Earned Him a Nobel Prize
Nobel laureate Shimon Sakaguchi reflects on what role of regulatory T cells have in peripheral immune tolerance and how the cells could transform treatment for cancer, autoimmune disease and organ transplant rejection
What It’s like to Be the President’s Doctor
A former White House physician reveals the medical realities of caring for the president of the U.S.
2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Awarded for Discoveries of How the Body Puts the Brakes on the Immune System
Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi shared the Nobel prize for their work on peripheral immune tolerance, a process that is key to organ transplants and treatment of autoimmune diseases
Infections of Drug-Resistant ‘Nightmare Bacteria’ Are Surging in Hospitals
The infection rate of one type of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales bacteria has risen by more than 460 percent in recent years. Scientists say people receiving treatment in hospitals are at highest risk
Vaccine Policy Shift, Brain Changes in Athletes and Ants That Harness Another Species’ DNA
A revamped CDC advisory committee faces vaccine debates, studies reveal brain changes in athletes, and climate change drives deadly heat waves across Europe.
Experts Warn of Growing Threats amid CDC Resignations
With the CDC in disarray and its future uncertain, this episode explores what’s driving the exodus of agency staff and what this means for national health security.
CDC’s Leadership Is in Chaos—Experts Warn of Public Health Risks
Public health experts warn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s leadership crisis—sparked by the White House’s efforts to oust CDC director Susan Monarez—could jeopardize national biosecurity, pandemic preparedness and disease outbreak surveillance
Texas’s Measles Outbreak Is Over, but the Disease Is Still a Threat
Texas may have declared its measles outbreak over, but rising cases elsewhere and the return to school mean it could easily resurge
These Lab-Controlled Microbes Can Make Any Chocolate Taste Gourmet
From hints of citrus to caramel, premium chocolate’s complex flavors derive from fermenting microbes on cocoa bean farms—and a new study suggests they can be grown on demand in the lab
Ozzy Osbourne’s Death Puts Spotlight on Parkinson’s Disease
Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer of Black Sabbath, has died at age 76. He said he had been previously diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease linked to the gene PRKN
What Is the Blood Vessel Disease Trump Is Diagnosed With?
After photographs showed President Donald Trump with swollen ankles and bruised hands, the White House revealed he has chronic venous insufficiency—a blood vessel disease that affects circulation in the legs
Pneumonic Plague Infections in Modern Times Show the Black Death Isn’t Dead
A person in Arizona recently died of pneumonic plague—a rare and severe form of the disease. An expert explains how the bacteria that spurred the Black Death centuries ago continues to claim lives
A Longevity Expert Breaks Down the Science and Hype of Biological Aging Tests
Super Agers author Eric Topol unpacks the rise of biological age tests—from organ clocks to immune system clocks—and how they might revolutionize early diagnosis of disease
How Bird Flu Became a Human Pandemic Threat
The first hints that a new strain of avian illness is emerging could be found on this beach on Delaware Bay, where migrating birds flock. Here’s what virus detectives who return there every year know right now.
RFK, Jr., Fires CDC Vaccine Panel, Oceans Are Acidifying, and Pangolins Face Newly Understood Threat
Major changes hit a key CDC vaccine advisory panel, ocean acidification crosses a critical threshold, and new research reveals an unexpected threat to pangolins.
How RFK, Jr.’s Dismissal of CDC Immunization Committee Panelists Will Affect America’s Vaccine Access
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., abruptly removes all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). An epidemiologist explains how this will affect people’s health and vaccine access
Can You Still Get a COVID Vaccine This Fall? Here’s What to Know
In recent years COVID shots joined flu shots as an annual offering at most neighborhood pharmacies. But the current administration has thrown that into uncertainty
See the Dramatic Consequences of Vaccination Rates Teetering on a ‘Knife’s Edge’
As U.S. childhood vaccination rates sway on a “knife’s edge,” new 25-year projections reveal how slight changes in national immunization could improve—or drastically reverse—the prevalence of measles, polio, rubella and diphtheria
Declining MMR Vaccination Rates Make West Texas Outbreak a Threat to Measles Elimination
High vaccination rates eliminated measles in the U.S. An outbreak that began in West Texas is threatening to overturn that status.
Universal Vaccines Have Eluded Scientists for Years. RFK, Jr., Is Betting This Approach Will Succeed
Trump’s HHS and NIH are planning to invest $500 million in a killed-whole-virus approach to universal vaccines, including such vaccines for flu and COVID. Here’s why that’s challenging
What We Know about Artificial Food Dyes and Health as RFK, Jr., Declares a U.S. Ban
This week the secretary of health and human services announced plans to remove eight more food dyes from the U.S.’s food system
Measles Was ‘Eliminated’ in the U.S. in 2000. The Current Outbreak May Change That
The U.S. formally eliminated measles in 2000 thanks to widespread vaccination, but public health experts fear the current growing outbreak of the disease may allow it to reclaim its hold