Dr. Nancy Jenkins received her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from Indiana University. Following postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School she joined the staff of The Jackson Laboratory and then the National Cancer Institute-Frederick, where she was a Senior Investigator and Head of the Molecular Genetics of Development Section for 22 years. She moved to the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore in 2006, where she served as Deputy Director for most of her stay. In 2011 she returned to the United States to serve as Co-Director of Houston Methodist Cancer Biology Program at Houston Methodist Research Institute. For more than 30 years she has co-headed a laboratory with Neal Copeland; the focus of their current research is cancer genetics. They have co-authored more than 800 papers and are among the most cited biomedical research scientists in the world today. Both have served on numerous scientific advisory and editorial boards and they have consulted for several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Copeland are also members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Jenkins and Copeland have modeled many different types of human disease in the mouse, but the focus of their current research is exclusively cancer. They are using the Sleeping Beauty transposable element system to tag and clone genes involved in the initiation, progression and metastasis of cancer. It is hoped that a better understanding of the genetics of cancer will lead to the development of additional targeted therapies for the treatment of various forms of the disease.