Jeremy Nathans is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He joined Johns Hopkins and Howard Hughes in 1988. Before that, he received twin B.S. degrees at MIT in Life Sciences and Chemistry, then went on to Stanford University School of Medicine, where he earned both a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and an M.D.

Nathans is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has won the Newcomb-Cleveland Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Initiatives in Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences, among many honors. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Neuroscience and an associate editor of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Nathans also holds a number of patents for fibroblast growth homologous factors and their methods of use.