Zaher Nahle

Zaher Nahle, PhD, MPA, is an award-winning scientist with interdisciplinary training in administration and biomedical research. As Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and Vice President for Research at Solve ME/CFS Initiative (SMCI), he oversees a research and scientific portfolio that includes a peer-review grant program for external investigators, specialized biobanking and patient registry platforms as well as numerous medical education initiatives for patients and healthcare professionals. He also directs a specialized investment program with medical centers, government agencies and industry partners to spark innovation and accelerate the discovery process in the ME/CFS disease space. Dr. Nahle is a frequent speaker at international conferences and serves on specialized committees at federal agencies, including the NIH and the CDC. His background spans the fields of cancer biology, high-throughput technologies, diabetes, and ME/CFS. Prior to joining SMCI, he served on the faculty at leading universities, including as an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and founded a nonprofit organization focused on the disability agenda with a classmate while at Harvard. His work is featured in journals like Science and Nature. He was an awardee of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) and a Mason fellow at Harvard. He received a PhD in Physiology and Biophysics from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory/Stony Brook and an MPA from Harvard University, where he also completed a fellowship in public policy and management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Education

 * Master in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (2013)
 * PhD in physiology and biophysics from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Stony Brook University (2003)
 * Post-doctoral fellowships at both Harvard and StonyBrook (2003-04)
 * Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from American University of Beirut (1995)

Awards

 * Robert Wood Johnson Foundation PEER White Label Award - for the establishment and implementation of a national Patient Registry and Electronic Health Information (EHI) system for ME/CFS (2016)
 * Harvard Kennedy School, Merit Scholarship (2013)
 * American Cancer Society (ACS) Scholar (pay if) - Outstanding score (2011)
 * National Priorities Research Program - Qatar Foundation (2010)
 * American Heart Association (AHA) career development award BGIA - Outstanding score (2008)
 * Department of Defense Breast Cancer Fellowship Award - Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (2000)

National Committees & Advocacy

 * Member – National Institutes of Health (NIH) ME/CFS Common Data Element (CDE) Initiative (January 2017 – present)
 * Member – Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Technical Development Working Group (October 2016 – present)
 * 18 May 2017 – Congressional Briefing on ME/CFS - Recording of Congressional Briefing on ME/CFS - (Slides of briefing)
 * 17 May 2017 – Rare Disease Legislative Advocates (RDLA), EveryLife Foundation legislative meeting in Washington, DC – Ensuring NIH Funding Benefits Science and Discovery in Rare and Neglected Diseases
 * 8 March 2017 – Written Public Testimony from the Solve ME/CFS Initiative to the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Labor Health & Human Services

Interviews & Talks

 * 17 October 2017 – White House Chronicle with Llewellyn King - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: a disease hidden in plain sight
 * 14 October 2017 – Convener of the Solve ME/CFS Initiative Discovery Forum 2017: A New Era in ME/CFS Research – Editorial Letter from Dr. Nahle and Presentation Summaries from the Discovery Forum
 * 31 May 2017 – Speaker at the 7th Invest in ME Biomedical Research into ME Colloquium in London – Biomarkers in ME/CFS
 * 24 May 2017 – Speaker at the Precision Medicine World Conference (PMWC) 2017 at Duke - Topic: ME/CFS: The Mysterious Illness Science Has Yet to Unravel
 * 25 January 2017 – Session Chair at the 2017 Precision Medicine World Conference in Silicon Valley – Topic: ME/CFS: The Mysterious Illness Science Has Yet to Unravel
 * 15 December 2016 – Solve ME/CFS Initiative Webinar - Progress and Challenges in ME/CFS with Zaher Nahle, PhD, MPA
 * 19 November 2015 – “Get Your Motor Running” – Zaher Nahle Takes on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Cort Johnson

Open Letter to The Lancet
Two open letters to the editor of The Lancet urged the editor to commission a fully independent review of the PACE trial, which the journal had published in 2011. In 2016, Dr. Nahle, along with 41 colleagues in the ME/CFS field, signed the second letter.
 * 10 February 2016, An open letter to The Lancet, again - Virology blog

Blog Posts & Editorials (selected)
2017 2016 2015
 * 21 September 2017, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 19 July 2017, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 14 April 2017, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * Spring 2017 SMCI Chronicle, 7 Research Lessons from the Lab Bench of Dr. Nahle
 * 10 February 2017, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 16 December 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 11 November 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 16 September 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 12 August 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 6 May 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 15 April 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 9 February 2016, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * Winter 2015 Chronicle, Overcoming the Challenges of a Complex Disease
 * 4 December 2015, SMCI Research 1st Letter
 * 14 September 2015, Did Darwin Have ME/CFS?
 * 21 August 2015, I Thought It Was a Typo…
 * 7 August 2015, SMCI Research 1st Letter

Online presence

 * LinkedIn
 * Facebook
 * Twitter