Elizabeth Nabel Bio
Elizabeth Nabel, MD
Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD
Elizabeth G. Nabel, Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, joined the NHLBI in September 1999 as the Institute Scientific Director of Clinical Research. Dr. Nabel is a board-certified cardiologist who has taken care of many patients with cardiovascular disease, including women with heart disease. Previously she had been Chief, Division of Cardiology, Director, Cardiovascular Research Center, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Physiology at the University of Michigan.
A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dr. Nabel received her medical education at Cornell University Medical College before moving to Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard University where she completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a clinical and research fellowship in cardiovascular medicine.
She 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. While at the University of Michigan, she became known for her research in the field of vascular biology and molecular cardiology and for her gene transfer studies of the cardiovascular system.
Dr. Nabel has had a longstanding interest in genetic and cellular therapies for cardiovascular disease, having developed techniques for the introduction and expression of recombinant genes into blood vessels in vivo. Her group has conducted a number of basic studies, investigating the expression and function of growth factor, cytokine, and cell cycle genes in the vasculature. Those studies lead to several clinical gene therapy trials of cardiovascular diseases in the United States and Eurpe.
Dr. Nabel has intertwined basic research and translation to clinical medicine and practice throughout her career and has championed the concept of "bench to bedside." Her current research interests are focused on the regulation of vascular growth and the molecular genetics of vascular diseases.
Dr. Nabel has received numerous awards including the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Council of the American Heart Association and the Amgen- Scientific Achievement Award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
