Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D. is Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, where she oversees an extensive national research portfolio with an annual budget of approximately $3.0 billion to prevent, diagnose, and treat heart, lung, and blood diseases.

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Nabel received her M.D. at Cornell University Medical College before moving to Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University where she completed her residency in internal medicine and a clinical/ research fellowship in cardiovascular (CV) medicine. She is board-certified in internal medicine and CV diseases. Dr. Nabel joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1987 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and rose through the ranks, becoming Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center in 1992, Professor of Internal Medicine and Physiology in 1994, and Director of the Division of Cardiology in 1997. Dr. Nabel joined the NHLBI in 1999 as Scientific Director for Clinical Research, and in 2005 became Director.

Dr. Nabel has intertwined basic research and translation to clinical medicine throughout her career and has championed the concept of "bench to bedside." At the University of Michigan, she became known for her research in molecular cardiology and vascular biology and for her gene transfer studies in the CV system. Dr. Nabel has had a longstanding interest in genetic and cellular therapies for CV disease, having developed techniques for the introduction and expression of recombinant genes into blood vessels in vivo. Her group conducted many basic studies investigating the expression and function of growth factor, cytokine, and cell cycle genes in the vasculature, which led to gene and cell-based trials for CV diseases in the United States and Europe.

Her current research interests are focused on the molecular genetics of vascular diseases, where she has investigated the regulation of smooth muscle cell growth by cell cycle proteins, a process important for the development of atherosclerosis. Her NIH lab has characterized the role of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors on vascular proliferation, inflammation, and progenitor cells. These inhibitors are important negative regulators of vascular smooth muscle cell growth and inflammation, and work from her lab has opened up new avenues for therapeutic targets in blood vessels. Her current work focuses on the rare premature aging disorder, Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, where she has characterized the smooth muscle cell defect leading to premature heart attack and stroke in children in their early teens. She is the author of >240 scientific publications, mentored 49 students, and is a partner on 16 patents.

Among her leadership efforts as Director of the NHLBI, Dr. Nabel developed a broad based institute Strategic Plan, and she subsequently has launched new scientific programs in the genomics of complex diseases, stem and progenitor cell biology, translational research, systems biology, nanotechnology, global health, and implementation science. She redesigned much of the NHLBI intramural program. She performs multiple leadership functions at the NIH, including co-chair of the Management and Budget Working Group, which oversees NIH central services budgets; development of genomic medicine programs and an NIH-wide data sharing policy for genome-wide association studies to guide transition of genomics to medicine; leadership of multiple public health programs, including the national Heart Truth - Red Dress campaign; and co-chair of the NIH Obesity Research Task Force.

Among her awards are the Willem Einthoven Award; the Amgen-Scientific Achievement Award; Distinguished Achievement Awards from the American Heart Association; Distinguished Alumni Award from Weill Cornell Medical College; and honorary doctorates from the University of Leuven, Belgium; Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, New York; and the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Association of American Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, where she serves on the IOM and AAP Councils. Dr. Nabel has also served as Councilor and Secretary for the ASCI; Associate Editor of the JCI; Board of Reviewing Editors for Science; and currently Editorial Board of the New England Journal of Medicine.