Nathan H. Lents is an American scientist, author, and university professor. He has been on the faculty of John Jay College since 2006 and is currently the director of the Cell and Molecular Biology program and the former head of the honors program and the campus Macaulay Honors College program. Lents is noted for his work in cell biology, genetics, and forensic science, as well as his popular science writing and blogging on the evolution of human biology and behavior. Lents is also a visiting faculty member at the University of Lincoln in the UK and a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Early life and education
Lents was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois and graduated from St. Teresa High School. He then attended Saint Louis University and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S degree in biology.
Lents moved to Saint Louis University School of Medicine for his doctoral work and graduated with a Ph.D. in Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences in 2004. He completed postdoctoral training in cancer genomics at NYU Medical Center under the direction of Brian David Dynlacht. He then joined the faculty of forensic science at John Jay College and the doctoral faculty of biochemistry at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Lents was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2011 and attained the rank of full professor at John Jay College in 2016, his tenth year on the faculty.
Research
While an undergraduate at Saint Louis University in the 1990s, Lents conducted research with Biology Department chair Robert I. Bolla on the biochemical interactions between soybean plants and the soybean cyst nematode, a key cause of soybean crop loss in the United States. Specifically, he discovered that the CF-9 gene cluster correlated with resistance to nematodes in soybean strains.
During this same time period, Lents also worked in the fermentation research division of agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland, conducting basic microbiology research on the soil bacteria Corynebacterium glutamicum, which is used in the production of amino acids for food additives. Specifically, he worked on the production of lysine, a product that was the subject of a global price-fixing conspiracy. ADM plead guilty to antitrust violations and was forced to pay $100 million, the largest antitrust fine in US history. Several top ADM executives served prison sentences, but none of the scientists in the lysine group were implicated in any wrongdoing.
Since 2000, Lents has published research reports in the area of cell and cancer biology, genetics, forensic science, as well as the teaching and learning of science, particularly evolution. Lents has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the US Department of Education. His early work focused on the cell cycle and cancer biology, particularly the G1 to S phase transition. Specifically, Lents and colleagues showed that activation of the MAP kinase cascade is necessary and sufficient for a key phosphorylation step in the activation of cyclin-dependent kinase 2, an important cell cycle enzyme. In addition, as a PhD student, Lents developed an innovative "reverse mutational" approach to discovering key phosphorylation sites on the Retinoblastoma protein, one of the most important tumor suppressors.
In 2008, Lents discovered a new splice variant for the Mdm2 oncogene that is induced upon treatment with DNA-damaging cancer chemotherapies. His laboratory later discovered new genetic connections between Vitamin D, the transcription factor MZF1, and the CCN gene family, work that has led him and others to call for exploration of the usefulness of vitamin D as a possible enhancement for cancer treatments.
Lents has also published research in the area of forensic biology and toxicology. His laboratory was among the first to note that zinc supplements can be effective in masking the presence of certain drug metabolites during routine drug testing. In 2016, he published work on the skin microbiome of decomposing human cadavers. He also developed and patented a DNA-based forensic method of species identification of trace plant material.
Most recently, Lents has turned his research focus to the evolutionary genetics of human uniqueness. His laboratory recently discovered a set of microRNA genes on human chromosome 21 that are not shared with other apes and that appear to have originated de novo through genomic rearrangements.