Piers Nash

Piers Nash

Piers David Nash (born August 8, 1969) is the Senior Director of Campaign Planning for Academic Research at the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Division. He is the son of Roger Nash and Chris Nash (Bronwen Christine Harrhy), and brother of Caedmon Nash. He is a resident of Hyde Park, Chicago where he lives with his wife, Elke Aippersbach, and their son, Jasper Nash.

Born in Exeter, England, and grew up in Sudbury, Canada. He received a B.Sc. with Honours, in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph and the Chemical Institute of Canada prize for the top of class. He received a Ph.D in 1999 from the University of Alberta working in the laboratory of Dr. Grant McFadden investigating poxviral immunomodulatory proteins. His doctoral thesis focused on the enzymology and biological properties of the Myxoma virus encoded serine proteinase inhibitor (serpin), SERP-1. 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. He was a Professor in The Ben May Department for Cancer Research and a Scientist of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at The University of Chicago from 2004-2012 and a Fellow of the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology from 2006-2012. As a scientist he investigates protein-protein interactions involved in signal transduction, and the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues. His work at The University of Chicago focused on understanding the SH2 domain at a systems level and investigating the role of ubiquitination in controlling endocytosis and modulating signal transduction. Earlier work focused on emergent properties of complex systems such as ultrasensitivity (all-or-none switches) at critical junctures in the cell cycle.

ResearchGate reports 46 peer-reviewed published works in a wide range of fields, including signal transduction, cell biology, molecular evolution, cell cycle, cognition and memory, meteorology, and pedagogy. Scopus notes an h-index of 20 and 3000 citations on 43 publications tracked in that database.