Iain William Mattaj (born 5 October 1952 in St Andrews, Scotland)[4] FRS[5] FRSE[3] is a British scientist and Honorary Professor at Heidelberg University in Germany.

[7] Mattaj has made a number of important contributions to our knowledge concerning how RNA and proteins are transported between the cell nucleus and cytoplasm.

[5] Prof. Mattaj subsequently uncovered the role of enzymes known as GTPases in the regulation of mitosis — the division of the cell nucleus into two daughter nuclei.

Under the influence of Ran, a GTPase signaling protein, the cell cytoskeleton remodels to form the mitotic spindle — a crucial structure in mitosis.

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