Nancy Carrasco

Nancy Carrasco is a professor in, and the chair of, the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University.

Early life and education Carrasco was born in Mexico City, Mexico. She obtained her M.D. from the School of Medicine and her M.S. in Biochemistry from the School of Chemistry at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1980 and 1981, respectively. She subsequently became a postdoctoral fellow at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in New Jersey, for which she received a Fogarty International Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. She did her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Ronald Kaback. In the course of her postdoctoral work, Carrasco—among other things—generated monoclonal and site-directed polyclonal antibodies against the lactose permease of E. coli. She used these antibodies to determine the topology of the lactose permease in the membrane of E. coli, and identified the proton translocation pathway that provides the driving force for lactose accumulation by E. coli.

In the summer of 2019, Carrasco moved again, this time to Vanderbilt University, where she became the Chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.

Sodium/iodide symporter Carrasco's research group was the first to clone, and extensively characterize at the molecular level, the sodium/iodide symporter (NIS), the key plasma membrane protein that mediates the active transport of iodide into the thyroid, the lactating breast, and other tissues. Beckman Young Investigators Award, Beckman Foundation (1991) Maria Sibylla Merian Award (1998) Light of Life Award, Light of Life Foundation (2010) Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2015) Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Lecturer, American Thyroid Association (2016) Member of the National Academy of Medicine (2020)

The Pew Award is given based on biomedical research. The Beckman Young Investigators Award is given to young members in the early stages of their careers in chemical and life sciences, providing them with research support. Carrasco was the first person to be awarded the Maria Sibylla Merian Award, given by the Essen College of Gender Studies in 1998. The Light of Life Award is given by the Light of Life Foundation to research that has impacted the understanding of Thyroid cancers.

Additionally, she serves on the editorial board of The Journal of General Physiology, and has served as the President of the Society of Latin American Biophysicists.