Kuriyan has made fundamental discoveries concerning the structure and mechanism of the enzymes and molecular switches responsible for cellular signal transduction and DNA replication. Kuriyan's work on protein tyrosine kinases has lead to explanations for how the cancer drug Gleevec achieves specificity, and how the catalytic activity of the epidermal growth factor receptor is activated. Much of our current understanding of how high speed DNA polymerases achieve very high processivity also emanates from Kuriyan's laboratory. Kuriyan is a major contributor to UK Science in both academic and advisory roles.