Office of the Director
Director's Profile
Gary J. Nabel, M.D., Ph.D.
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| Dr. Gary J. Nabel |
Dr. Gary Nabel serves as Director of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. The VRC was established in 1999 under Dr. Nabel’s leadership by President Clinton to assist in the development of a vaccine against AIDS.
Dr. Nabel provides overall direction and scientific leadership of the basic, clinical, and translational research activities of the VRC, and guides development of novel vaccine strategies against HIV and other emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola/Marburg hemorrhagic fevers, influenza, and other viruses. The efforts of the Center are directed towards several major areas of vaccine research and development including the definition of immune mechanisms that may protect against HIV infection; the influence of cellular and humoral immune responses on protection; the conception, design, and preparation of vaccine candidates for HIV and other infectious diseases; and the initiation of multiple human clinical trials to test the safety and immune response of these vaccine candidates. Under Dr. Nabel’s leadership, the VRC was able to initiate its first clinical trial, a Phase I study of an HIV/AIDS vaccine within a year after opening, and has developed an HIV candidate vaccine that is presently in a Phase II efficacy trial. Dr. Nabel also serves as Chief of the Virology Laboratory at the VRC which examines molecular regulation of HIV replication, optimization of immune responses to gene-based vaccination, and development of improved HIV envelope immunogens.
Dr. Nabel graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1975 and continued his graduate studies at Harvard, completing his Ph.D. in 1980 and his M.D. two years later. He then served as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Baltimore at MIT’s Whitehead Institute. Before his appointment at the VRC, Dr. Nabel served as the Henry Sewall Professor of Internal Medicine, professor of Biochemistry, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In addition to his faculty positions, Dr. Nabel also served as the Director of the Center for Gene Therapy and co-director of the Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nabel has also established a distinguished track record in developing novel therapeutic approaches. For example, Dr. Nabel and his colleagues were the first to use direct gene transfer to introduce therapeutic proteins into patients with melanoma, showing the feasibility and safety of this approach.
In recognition of his expertise at the forefront of virology, immunology, gene therapy, and molecular biology, Dr. Nabel was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1998, where he still serves. Among his many other honors, Dr. Nabel has received the Amgen Scientific Achievement Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service in 2003, and election to the American Association of Physicians, the American Association for Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Microbiology. Dr. Nabel has been chosen as the Keynote Speaker and Distinguished Lecturer at numerous scientific meetings including the Jenner Lecture at St. George’s Hospital London and the 2007 Distinguished Lecturer of Virology at Oxford University. He is the author of over 350 scientific publications.
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