Gary Nabel
Gary J. Nabel is an American virologist and immunologist. He is the co-founder, president, and chief executive officer of ModeX Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in Natick, Massachusetts, and has served as a director of SIGA Technologies since June 2021.
From 1999 to November 2012, he served as the founding director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Education
Nabel earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1975, his doctorate of medicine in 1980, and his doctorate in 1982. His doctoral research was completed under immunologist Harvey Cantor. After completing his doctorate, Nabel conducted postdoctoral research with molecular biologist David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute, focusing on transcriptional regulation of HIV gene expression by the transcription factor NF-κB.He later completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Scientific career and research
Nabel joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1987, where he led a research laboratory on infectious diseases and cancer immunotherapy. His research focused on gene transfer, basic mechanisms of HIV gene regulation, and NF-κB transcriptional control. He served as a professor of internal medicine and biological chemistry and as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute until 1999, conducting research on viral vectors in gene therapy and transcriptional regulation of cellular and viral gene expression.In 1999, Nabel was appointed as the founding director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under the NIH. The VRC focused on laboratory research and clinical trials of vaccines, including over 100 clinical studies for vaccine candidates against SARS, Chikungunya, Universal Influenza, and Ebola vaccines. His research during this time focused on neutralizing antibodies. His Ebola research using molecular immunology and molecular virology techniques identified genes critical for Ebola virus replication and assembly. This work led to the development of a vaccine that was tested in non-human primates and contributed to defining the immune mechanisms of protection that informed the development of the VSV vaccine.
During his tenure as director, the VRC also developed a Chikungunya vaccine effective in primates and utilized a structure-based approach to vaccine design that revealed broadly protective human immune responses to HIV. This led to the discovery of broadly neutralizing antibodies to the highly conserved CD4 binding site of HIV that entered human efficacy trials in Africa.
Nabel moved to the private sector in 2012, joining Sanofi as Chief Scientific Officer. His research there focused on trispecific antibodies for the treatment and prevention of AIDS and cancer. In 2020, Nabel co-founded ModeX Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, which was acquired by OPKO Health in 2022.
Nabel has held positions on various scientific advisory boards and councils, including Chairman of the Strategic Development and Scientific Advisory Council.
Awards
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, the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Builders of Science Award from Research America, and the James Tolbert Shipley Prize for Research at Harvard Medical School. He received an honorary degree from the University of London, as well as the U.S. Army Medical Department’s Order of Military Medical Merit. Nabel is an elected fellow of the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and the AAAS. Nabel was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1992 and the National Academy of Medicine in 1998.Nabel served as the Chair of the Board of Directors for the Keystone Symposia from 2017 to 2019. He was a Council Delegate to the AAAS, Medical Sciences Section from 1997 to 2002, and was the editor for the Journal of Virology from 1995 to 2005.