Rate My Professor Ryan Nett

Ryan Nett is an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the Biology faculty at Harvard University, specializing in plant biochemistry. He received a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2012 and a Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Iowa State University in 2017. In Reuben J. Peters' laboratory during graduate school, Nett investigated gibberellin biosynthesis in nitrogen-fixing bacteria associated with legume root nodules, demonstrating that bacterial gibberellin production enhances nodule size and revealing convergent evolution between bacterial and plant pathways, as detailed in his 2017 Nature Chemical Biology paper, 'Elucidation of gibberellin biosynthesis in bacteria reveals convergent evolution,' and a 2022 ISME Journal article, 'Production of the plant hormone gibberellin by rhizobia increases host legume nodule size.' Following his Ph.D., he conducted postdoctoral research in Elizabeth Sattely's laboratory at Stanford University, where he discovered the complete biosynthetic pathway for the anti-inflammatory alkaloid colchicine in Gloriosa superba, engineered its production in a model plant, and achieved total chemical synthesis, published in Nature (2020), PNAS (2021), and JACS (2021).

At Harvard since 2022, Nett's laboratory elucidates the biosynthetic mechanisms underlying plant-derived bioactive small molecules, including neuroactive alkaloids, non-proteinogenic amino acids, and other specialized metabolites that mediate plant defense, communication, nutrient acquisition, and interactions with microbes and animals. His interdisciplinary approach integrates enzyme biochemistry, metabolomics, transcriptomics, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology to characterize neofunctionalized metabolic enzymes, reconstruct complete pathways for medicinal compounds, and identify metabolite-protein interactions. Recent work includes uncovering carbonic anhydrase-like enzymes in neuroactive alkaloid biosynthesis, reported in Nature (2023). Nett's contributions have earned him the 2025 Pew Scholarship in the Biomedical Sciences, providing $300,000 over four years for research on non-canonical amino acids in dietary plants, and the 2025–2027 George W. Merck Fellowship, awarding $600,000 to explore neuroactive molecule synthesis across plant cell types. With over 900 citations on Google Scholar, his findings advance plant metabolism understanding, drug discovery, and crop engineering for safer nutrition and sustainable medicine production.