E. Dale Abel

Abel is from Jamaica.[1] He was encouraged by his parents to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer.[1] He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of the West Indies, where he specialised in medicine. He was the first person to graduate with a distinction in medicine from the University. He move to the United Kingdom for his graduate studies, completed his doctoral research in physiology at the University of Oxford. He was a medical intern in surgery and paediatrics at the University of the West Indies, before completing his residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University.[2]

Abel started a clinical research fellowship in diabetes at Harvard Medical School in 1992.[3] After completing his fellowship, Abel joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where he was appointed co-Director of the fellowship programme at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.[3] At Beth Israel, he worked alongside Barbara Kahn, with whom who identified the relationship between adipose tissue glucose transporter (GLUT4) and insulin resistance. He was recruited to the faculty at the University of Utah in 2000, first as Assistant Professor and eventually as Professor of Medicine.[3] At the time, around 16 million Americans suffered from diabetes, with three quarters of them dying from heart disease or stroke.[4] Abel was supported by the National Institutes of Health to develop a mouse model of diabetes. Abel studied how glucose is delivered to cells.[4] He made use of conditional gene targeting to induce genetic defects that resulted in heart muscle cells being incapable of taking up glucose.[4]

In 2013 Abel moved to the University of Iowa as Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.[2][5][6] His research looks to understand the molecular mechanisms that underpin cardiac failure in diabetes.[2] He has investigated how diabetes impacts the formation of blood clots; with the increased glucose uptake of platelets in diabetic mice promoting overactivation and excess clotting.[7] Abel was amongst the first rounds of physicians to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.[8]

• 1986 Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford[9][10]
• 1996 Harvard Medical School Eleanor and Miles Shore, 50th Anniversary Scholars in Medicine Fellowship[11]
• 1999 Harvard Medical School Excellence in Teaching Award[11]
• 2001 American Thyroid Association Van Meter Award[12]
• 2001 David W. Haack Memorial Award in Cardiovascular Research[11]
• 2003 Established Investigator of the American Heart Association[13]
• 2012 Meharry Medical College James Pulliam Memorial Lectureship[14]
• 2012 Endocrine Society Gerald D. Aurbach Award Lecture[3]
• 2013 Elected Fellow of the American Heart Association[9]
• 2015 University of Tennessee Health Science Center the Max Miller Lecture
• 2015 Elected to the National Academy of Medicine[15]
• 2018 NIH Director’s Astute Clinician Lecture[16][17]
• 2018 African American Museum of Iowa History Makers Award[18]
• 2020 Selected as President-Elect of the Association of Professors of Medicine[19]
• 2020 Named by Cell Press as one of the most inspirational Black scientists in the United States.[20]

• Boudina, Sihem; Abel, E. Dale (2007-06-26). "Diabetic Cardiomyopathy Revisited". Circulation. 115 (25): 3213–3223. doi:10.1161/circulationaha.106.679597. ISSN 0009-7322.
• Abel, E. Dale; Peroni, Odile; Kim, Jason K.; Kim, Young-Bum; Boss, Olivier; Hadro, Ed; Minnemann, Timo; Shulman, Gerald I.; Kahn, Barbara B. (2001). "Adipose-selective targeting of the GLUT4 gene impairs insulin action in muscle and liver". Nature. 409 (6821): 729–733. doi:10.1038/35055575. ISSN 1476-4687.
• Boudina, Sihem; Abel, Evan Dale (2010). "Diabetic cardiomyopathy, causes and effects". Reviews in Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders. 11 (1): 31–39. doi:10.1007/s11154-010-9131-7. ISSN 1389-9155. PMC 2914514. PMID 20180026.