Nathan Nelson (born 1938) is an Israeli biochemist and molecular biologist who was awarded the 2013 Israel Prize in Life Sciences.

When his father became sick, Nelson left Gevim to take care of their farm in Avihayil, raising cattle and sheep but mainly cultivating citrus trees.

In 1961, Nelson's former elementary and high school teacher, Professor Elazar Kochva, persuaded him to leave the farm to study at the newly established Tel Aviv University.

[9] Nelson did a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Efraim Racker at Cornell from 1970 to 1972, after which he joined the newly opened Department of Biology at the Technion in Haifa.

In addition to his research and teaching, he was instrumental in starting the Daniella Rich Institute for Structural Biology on a very small budget.

[citation needed] Nelson's research of the metal-ion transporters in yeast explained the mechanism of action of the resistance and sensitivity towards mycobacteria in mice that causes leprosy and tuberculosis in human.

It was known that a defect in the homologous gene in Drosophila causes loss of taste and he found that it can be corrected by the addition of manganese or iron to their diet.

However, his main contribution is in supervising the work that culminated in solving the crystal structure of plant PSI by his students Adam Ben-Shem and later Alexey Amunts.