Gary Nabel

Gary J. Nabel is an American virologist and immunologist who has held research positions at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and in the biotechnology industry. He was the founding director of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)^[1][2] from 1999 to 2012, and later served as chief scientific officer at Sanofi. He is president and chief executive officer of ModeX Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in Natick, Massachusetts.^[3] He has served as a director of SIGA Technologies since June 2021.^[4]

Nabel received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1975 and an MD–PhD from Harvard in 1982. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1985, and then undertook postdoctoral research focusing on the transcriptional regulation of HIV gene expression by the transcription factor NF-κB.^[5][6]

From 1987 to 1999, Nabel led a research laboratory at the University of Michigan with support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. During this time, he conducted research on gene therapy and transcriptional regulation of cellular and viral gene expression.^[7][8]

In 1999, Nabel was appointed as the founding director of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the NIH. The VRC focused on laboratory research and clinical trials of vaccines, including 100 studies for vaccine candidates against SARS, Chikungunya, Influenza, and Ebola.^[9] Notable developments during Nabel's tenure at the VRC included research into the immune mechanisms of protection against Ebola that would inform the development of the vesicular stomatitis virus-based Ebola vaccine (VSV-EBOV),^[10] and the discovery of broadly neutralizing antibodies to the conserved CD4 binding site of HIV, later tested in human efficacy trials.^[11]

In 2012, Nabel joined Sanofi as Chief Scientific Officer. In addition to continuing his work on neutralizing antibodies against HIV, he led research on antibody-mediated stimulation of CD8 T cells in cancer using novel multi-specific antibodies.^[12][13][14] In 2020, Nabel co-founded ModeX Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company primarily focusing on these multi-specific antibodies. ModeX was acquired by OPKO Health in 2022.^[15][16]

Nabel has held positions on various scientific advisory boards and councils, including Chairman of the Strategic Development and Scientific Advisory Council (SDSAC).^[17]

Nabel has received the following awards and appointments:

• The Amgen Scientific Achievement Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology^[18]
• The Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service
• The Geoffrey Beene Foundation^[19] Builders of Science Award from Research America
• The James Tolbert Shipley Prize for Research at Harvard Medical School^[18]
• An honorary degree from the University of London
• The U.S. Army Medical Department’s Order of Military Medical Merit
• An elected fellow of the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the AAAS
• Elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1992 and the National Academy of Medicine in 1998
• Served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Keystone Symposia^[20] from 2017 to 2019
• Council Delegate to the AAAS, Medical Sciences Section, from 1997 to 2002
• Editor for the Journal of Virology from 1995 to 2005

See Google Scholar for citation information.

• Nabel, Gary; Baltimore, David (1987-04-22). "An inducible transcription factor activates expression of human immunodeficiency virus in T cells". Nature. 326 (6114): 711–713. Bibcode:1987Natur.326..711N. doi:10.1038/326711a0. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 3031512. S2CID 4317942.
• Osborn, L.; Kunkel, S.; Nabel, G. J. (1989-04-01). "Tumor necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 1 stimulate the human immunodeficiency virus enhancer by activation of the nuclear factor kappa B". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 86 (7): 2336–2340. Bibcode:1989PNAS...86.2336O. doi:10.1073/pnas.86.7.2336. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 286907. PMID 2494664.
• Nabel, G. J.; Nabel, E. G.; Yang, Z. Y.; Fox, B. A.; Plautz, G. E.; Gao, X.; Huang, L.; Shu, S.; Gordon, D.; Chang, A. E. (1993-12-01). "Direct gene transfer with DNA-liposome complexes in melanoma: expression, biologic activity, and lack of toxicity in humans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 90 (23): 11307–11311. Bibcode:1993PNAS...9011307N. doi:10.1073/pnas.90.23.11307. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 47971. PMID 8248244.
• Wu, Xueling; Yang, Zhi-Yong; Li, Yuxing; Hogerkorp, Carl-Magnus; Schief, William R.; Seaman, Michael S.; Zhou, Tongqing; Schmidt, Stephen D.; Wu, Lan; Xu, Ling; Longo, Nancy S.; McKee, Krisha; O’Dell, Sijy; Louder, Mark K.; Wycuff, Diane L.; Feng, Yu; Nason, Martha; Doria-Rose, Nicole; Connors, Mark; Kwong, Peter D.; Roederer, Mario; Wyatt, Richard T.; Nabel, Gary J.; Mascola, John R. (2010-08-13). "Rational Design of Envelope Identifies Broadly Neutralizing Human Monoclonal Antibodies to HIV-1". Science. 329 (5993): 856–861. Bibcode:2010Sci...329..856W. doi:10.1126/science.1187659. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 2965066. PMID 20616233.

• Dolgin, Elie (2013-03-06). "Straight talk with Gary Nabel". Nature Medicine. 19 (3): 256. doi:10.1038/nm0313-256. ISSN 1078-8956. PMID 23467227. S2CID 205377266.
• Branswell, Helen (2016-03-17). "Sanofi science chief says it's to time 'think big' about Zika". Retrieved 2017-04-03.
• Gokhale, Ketaki (2016-07-12). "Sanofi Sees Cure for Cancer Woes in Moving West for Acquisitions". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
• Advisory board bio page for the EU-funded Advanced Immunization Technologies project