Piers Nash

Piers David Nash, Ph.D.,(born August 8, 1969) is a scientist who investigates protein-protein interactions involved in signal transduction, and the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues.

He is an Assistant Professor in The Ben May Institute for Cancer Research and a Scientist of the Cancer Research Center at The University of Chicago which he joined in 2004. His work focuses on understanding the SH2 domain at a systems level and investigating the role of ubiquitination in controlling endocytosis and modulating signal transduction.

Born in Exeter, England, he received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph and received a Ph.D in 1999 from the University of Alberta. He completed postdoctoral research with Dr. Tony Pawson at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto from June 1999 to December 2003.

[edit] Notable scientific works

In 2006 his group, in collaboration with Dr. Tony Pawson, defined the SH2 domains extent in the human and mouse genomes and thereby established the boundaries of phosphotyrosine signaling. This work was published in the journal Molecular Cell and led to the creation of the SH2 domain website.
A 2003 review article in the journal Science co-authored with Tony Pawson.
Beginning in 2001 he helped to discover and define a sub-class of SH3 domains that bind to atypical ligands containing a conserved RXXK peptide sequence.
In 2001 he published an article in the journal Nature that described the manner in which multi-site phosphorylation of the protein Sic1 creates an all-or-none (ultrasensitive) switch for the initiaton of DNA replication. This article was highly cited and extensively reviewed and was considered one of the breakthroughs of the year by Science magazines STKE.
As a graduate student, he worked under the supervision of Dr. Grant McFadden investigating the enzymology and biological properties of the Myxoma virus encoded serine proteinase inhibitor (serpin), SERP-1.