Dr. Yancopoulos visits Hackley’s ISRP

During his visit, Dr. Yancopoulos discussed how he developed his idea to “humanize” mice to contain human genes and immune system, which allows his company to cure devastating diseases such as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive and many others.

One student commented that he was “very passionate and cared about what he was doing and the effects it would have on the patients. It was very inspiring to hear that it does not matter what other people say and that one should follow his/her passions and then the rest will follow. I saw how he really cares about the people including the impact of Regeneron’s drug on actual patients.”

In addition, Dr. Yancopoulos emphasized the importance of developing new technologies being core to not only his company’s success, but also vital for finding solutions to more global problems such as climate change. By creating the technology to test the human immune response in mice, his company is able to help cure many different diseases.

“I was intrigued by how Dr. Yancopoulos talked about Regeneron being a company based in science, not business. It never occurred to me how big of a contribution to their success that was. This is what I took away from his speech; trusting the science to guide the way” remarked another student.

Finally, Dr. Yancopoulos inspired our students to recognize “that it is up to future scientists like us from our generation to try and tackle these issues.”

Our thanks to Dr. Yancopoulos for visiting with our IRP students. His dedication to science education is also mirrored in Regeneron’s outreach to fund both the prestigious Science Talent Search, the International Science Fair, and the opening of the new Regeneron DNA Learning Center on the company's Sleepy Hollow campus.

All alumni/parents with present or past experiences in scientific research have a standing invitation to come back and visit the Independent Research Program. Our future scientists love hearing your stories, and these talks are formative to their careers. If you are interested, please reach out to Dr. Andrew Ying.