Simon Young
Associate Professor
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
School of Dentistry
Department of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
Dr. Young’s research program integrates biomaterials, immunoengineering, cancer biology, and oral and maxillofacial surgery. His lab develops locally delivered biomaterial platforms that recruit, modulate, and program immune and stromal cells within diseased tissue microenvironments. A major focus is the development of injectable and implantable materials that deliver multiple immunomodulatory cues with controlled spatial and temporal release to improve treatment responses in oral and head and neck cancer.
In collaboration with investigators at Rice University, UTHealth Houston, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Young Lab is developing material-based immunotherapies for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and studying how these approaches synergize with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and immune checkpoint blockade. Current projects use preclinical tumor models, flow cytometry, multiplex imaging, and spatial transcriptomics to define how local immunomodulation reshapes the tumor microenvironment and enhances anti-tumor immunity.
The lab also explores living therapeutic systems, including engineered mammalian and bacterial “microcytokine factories” designed to produce therapeutic cytokines or chemokines locally after tumor resection. In parallel, the lab continues to study biomaterial strategies for craniofacial bone regeneration and reconstruction.
Graduate students in the Young Lab receive interdisciplinary training in biomaterials, cancer immunology, tissue engineering, and translational preclinical research, including polymer and hydrogel characterization, controlled release, flow cytometry, multiplex immunohistochemistry, micro-computed tomography, histomorphometry, and animal models of cancer and tissue regeneration.
Education & Training
D.D.S - University of Toronto - 2003
Ph.D. - Rice University - 2008
M.D. - The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston - 2011