Nabel joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1987, where he led a research lab focused on infectious diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
In 1999, Nabel was recruited to build a vaccine research program for the country at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC.
He served as the founding director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases within NIH and then senior investigator with tenure.
Nabel provided overall scientific leadership of the basic, clinical, and translational research activities and guided development of novel vaccine strategies.
Understanding the molecular genetics and structure of viral replication, he discovered the first vaccine against Ebola, using gene-based immunization to completely protect against infection in non-human primates.
[10][11] This work provided the conceptual basis that served as a prototype for the VSV vaccine recently proven efficacious in humans.
Recently, he created an innovative antibody platform, trispecific Abs, that show unprecedented anti-HIV breadth and potency.