Nathanael Gray

Nathanael S. Gray is a professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and professor of cancer biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His work focuses on synthetic chemistry and novel small molecule inhibitors.

Gray grew up in Zambia, Yemen, India and Sudan and moved to California for high school. Nathanael Gray received his BS and PhD in organic chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1999 where he discovered purvalanol. After graduating, he worked at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego, and after working as a staff scientist and group leader of kinase inhibitor chemistry, he was named director of biological chemistry in 2001. He moved to Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2006. Among the discoveries his lab has made are Torin1, an ATP-competitive mTOR inhibitor, BMK1, an inhibitor of ERK5, and inhibitors of EGFR, mTor, Bcr-Abl, Mps1, Erk5, b-Raf and Ephrin kinases.

Awards