Elizabeth Nabel

Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D.
Alma mater	St. Olaf College Weill Cornell Medical College Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Known for	National Academy of Sciences , Association of American Physicians, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Scientific career
Fields	Cardiovascular biology Academic Medicine
Institutions	US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School University of Michigan

Elizabeth Nabel is an American cardiologist and the current Executive Vice President of Strategy at ModeX Therapeutics in Natick, Massachusetts. Prior to this role, she served as President of Brigham Health and its Brigham and Women's Hospital, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Family[]

Nabel was born Elizabeth Emilee Guenthner and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota.^[1] Her father was a scientist at 3M and her mother a schoolteacher, whom she credits with giving her a love for family and learning, hard work, integrity, and a deep obligation to serve the wider community. Elizabeth, her sister, and two brothers looked forward to family dinner when their father would describe his interesting work as a chemist and inventor. He transmitted an excitement about science to Elizabeth and her brother, who became an academic pharmacologist.^[2] During her residency, Elizabeth met Gary Nabel, then an intern with an MD/PhD in Immunology from Harvard University. Their first date was to settle a bet about a patient's diagnosis, and Gary won. They went for dinner at a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts and ended up in the middle of an armed robbery. Elizabeth admired the calm way in which Gary handled the situation, and a year later they were married. Their three children are all pursuing careers as physician-scientists.^[3]

Education[]

Nabel became interested in biomedicine during scientific research at St. Olaf College. She graduated summa cum laude from St. Olaf in 1974 and earned her MD degree from Weill Cornell Medical College in 1981.^[4] As a senior medical student, she spent a month's elective in cardiology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. She later returned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for her house staff training in internal medicine, interested in linking clinical medicine with research. She considered cardiology the best match for her because she considered it the best specialty to make advances as a physician-scientist.^[5]

Career[]

In 1987, on completion of fellowships in Boston, Nabel and husband Gary Nabel moved to the University of Michigan, where Nabel ascended through the academic ranks to Professor of Medicine and Physiology and Director of a new, interdepartmental, and multidisciplinary Cardiovascular Research Center and became Chief of the Cardiology Division. Nabel moved to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1999 to become Scientific Director of Clinical Research and Chief of the Vascular Biology Section in the intramural program of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). As director of the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute from 2005 to 2009, Nabel had a history of advocacy and broadening access to care. She leveraged the $3 billion research portfolio to establish pioneering scientific programs in genomics, stem cells, and translational research.^[6] During her tenure, NHLBI was the first NIH institute to expedite review for new investigator research grant applications. She was a co-founder of the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases. One of her signature advocacy efforts was the , which raises heart awareness in women through industry partnerships.

In 2010, Nabel returned to Brigham and Women’s Hospital as president and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Nabel’s diverse experience as a physician, research scientist, executive, and advocate has molded her vision for the future of academic medicine. At Brigham Health, Nabel led an organizational transformation focused on innovation and building a collaborative culture to reshape healthcare delivery, compassionate care, scientific discovery, and training the next generation of medical and scientific leaders. Her focus was on global expansion of Brigham Health, research commercialization and philanthropy, having raised more than $1.75 billion.^[7] In 2021, Nabel joined ModeX Therapeutics, a company she founded with Drs. Gary Nabel and Elias Zerhouni focused on immune therapies for cancer and infectious diseases.^[8]

Biomedical research[]

An accomplished physician-scientist, Nabel’s work on the molecular genetics of cardiovascular diseases has produced 17 patents and more than 250 scientific publications. Nabel’s scientific contributions in cardiovascular gene transfer have developed molecular and cellular techniques,^[9] delineated the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis,^[10] and clarified the processes of cell division and growth of vascular smooth muscle cells in blood vessels.^[11]

Nabel's studies on Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome have characterized the vascular smooth muscle cell defect leading to premature heart attack and stroke. She conducted clinical studies to understand the contribution of genetic factors to proliferative and inflammatory diseases in blood vessels, including common diseases like atherosclerosis and the rare, premature aging in Hutchinson Gilford progeria syndrome.^[12] In November 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved lonafarnib, which helps prevent buildup of defective progerin and similar proteins.^[13] A clinical trial in 2018 pointed to significantly lower mortality rates ~ treatment with lonafarnib alone compared with no treatment (3.7% vs. 33.3%) ~ at a median post-trial follow-up time span of 2.2 years.^[14]

At her NHLBI laboratory, Nabel delineated the mechanisms by which cell cycle and growth factor proteins regulate the proliferation of vascular cells in blood vessels, a process important for the development of atherosclerosis and restenosis. Her vascular biology laboratory characterized the role of cell cycle inhibitors on vascular proliferation and inflammation, and this research has opened up new avenues for therapeutic targets in the vasculature.^[15] Nabel contributed to both policy and basic research on embryonic stem cells.

National Football League[]

Building on her lifelong commitment to improving health through science, in 2015 Nabel was appointed chief health and medical advisor to the National Football League. In this newly created advisory role, Nabel provided strategic input to the NFL’s medical, health and scientific efforts; participated as an ex-officio member on each of the NFL’s medical advisory committees; and identified areas for the NFL to enhance player safety, care and treatment.^[16] Nabel stepped down from this role in 2017 after she guided the NFL to hire its first Chief Medical Officer.

Boards[]

Nabel serves on the Boards of Medtronic, Moderna, the Lasker Foundation, and the Broad Institute.^[17] Nabel has served on the editorial boards of eighteen journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Science Translational Medicine, and Circulation.

Awards[]

Nabel has been named one of the nation’s top leaders in medicine by Modern Healthcare^[18] and Becker’s Hospital Review,^[19] and one of Boston’s 50 most powerful people by Boston Magazine.^[20] Her honors include the Distinguished Bostonian Award from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce,^[21] the Kober Medal from the Association of American Physicians,^[22] the Champion in Health Care award from the Boston Business Journal,^[23] and the Rambam Award from Rambam Health Care Campus in Israel.^[24] She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the Association of American Physicians, the , and she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Boston Globe Spotlight Report and Resignation[]

In 2020 the Boston Globe's investigative journalism unit, Spotlight, began researching allegations that Nabel's role as a board member for corporations doing business with Brigham & Women's Hospital was posing a conflict of interest. The Globe reported that Nabel "worked for two publicly traded companies and a group of investment funds at one point, attending, either remotely or in person, between 30 and 40 board and committee meetings called by the two companies in 2019." Most disturbingly, according to the Globe, Nabel had served on the board of Moderna, the manufacturer of a COVID-19 vaccine that was being tested in a nationwide trial led by Brigham & Women's own researchers, and profited in the amount of several million dollars by selling the company's shares at the height of the pandemic.

The Globe's article "Boston’s hospital chiefs moonlight on corporate boards at rates far beyond the national level" was published on April 3, 2021, stating that "Nabel resigned after a Globe reporter contacted the hospital to ask about how she managed this conflict of interest; she sold what turned out to be $8.5 million of Moderna stock last year, before the trial concluded."^[25]

Following her resignation, Nabel took a job at her husband's biotech company.^[26] She also rejoined the board of Moderna.^[27] In her own defense, Nabel was quoted in the Spotlight article as saying that "the concerns about conflicts are based on a lack of understanding about how conflicts of interest are managed" and that "I have multitasked all my life. I work 12-plus hours per day."

Harvard physicians and staff at Brigham and Women's Hospital were reported to be deeply upset by the extent of Nabel's profit from the sale of Moderna stock and they subsequently formed a group seeking to prohibit hospital CEOs in Boston from serving on corporate boards.^[28]

References[]

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