Rate My Professor Nicholas Tonks

Nicholas Tonks is Professor and Caryl Boies Professor of Cancer Research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he also serves as Cancer Center Associate Director of Shared Resources. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Dundee in 1985. Tonks studies protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), a family of enzymes that remove phosphate groups from proteins and other signaling molecules. His research examines how PTP activity is regulated and how these enzymes influence signaling pathways disrupted in diseases including cancer, diabetes, obesity, autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Tonks discovered PTP1B and has characterized its regulation by reversible oxidation and allosteric mechanisms, as well as its roles in insulin signaling and HER2-mediated pathways. His group has identified PTPs as potential tumor suppressors in breast cancer and developed recombinant antibodies targeting oxidized PTP1B to promote insulin signaling. Recent work includes studies on PTP1B inhibition in Alzheimer’s disease models and PTPRD function in breast cancer.

Tonks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and named a 2019 AAAS Fellow for his contributions to signal transduction research. He received the Vallee Visiting Professor Award and an ASBMB award. His laboratory has produced numerous publications on PTP function and therapeutic targeting, including papers in Nature Communications, Cancer Discovery, and Genes & Development. Tonks has contributed to public lectures on drugging PTP targets and holds appointments that support shared resources and education within the CSHL Cancer Center.