Rate My Professor Nina Jones

Dr. Nina Jones is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Science, at the University of Guelph, where she holds the Canada Research Chair Tier I in Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Disease. She developed her interest in molecular biology and genetics during her undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph. She earned her Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Dumont, focusing on signal transduction pathways required for angiogenesis, or blood vessel formation. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Tony Pawson at the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute, studying the signaling scaffold known as the slit diaphragm in the kidney using biochemical, cellular, and genetic approaches. Joining the faculty of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph in fall 2006, she advanced to Associate Professor in spring 2009 and to full Professor in 2018.

Dr. Jones's research centers on the molecular basis of signal transduction, examining how disruptions in cellular information exchange contribute to prevalent human pathologies including kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, neurological disorders, and cancer. Her laboratory employs an interdisciplinary approach incorporating modern mouse genetic tools, cell culture models, high-resolution microscopy, large-scale profiling techniques, and clinical specimens. Current focus areas include signaling pathways controlling kidney podocyte morphology, focal adhesion dynamics in cancer cells, cell migration pathways in cardiovascular development, and characterization of the neuronal adaptor protein ShcD. She has received numerous awards and honors, including the 2023 CIHR Canada Research Chair Tier I in Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Disease, the inaugural 2017 University of Guelph College of Biological Science Graduate Mentoring Award, the 2017 YMCA-YWCA of Guelph Women of Distinction Award, election to the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2016, the 2011 NSERC Canada Research Chair Tier II in Eukaryotic Cellular Signalling, the 2008 CIHR/Kidney Foundation KRESCENT New Investigator Award, the 2007 Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and the 2001 John Charles Polanyi Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Key publications include "Deletion of Adaptor Protein ShcD Impairs Olfactory Bulb Morphology and Function" (Molecular and Cellular Biology, 2025), "Reduced nephrin tyrosine phosphorylation impairs podocyte force transmission and accelerates detachment in disease" (iScience, 2025), "ShcD adaptor protein drives invasion of triple negative breast cancer cells by aberrant activation of EGFR signaling" (Molecular Oncology, 2025), "ShcA adaptor protein promotes nephrin endocytosis and is upregulated in proteinuric nephropathies" (Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2018), and "Nephrin tyrosine phosphorylation is required for maintenance and restoration of podocyte foot process architecture" (Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, 2016).