Dr. Lee Nadler has been called a “force of nature.” He calls himself a specialist in “getting things done.”
He talks fast, the ideas barreling out of his mouth in his Bronx accent. He checks his watch every couple of minutes, if not sooner. He walks fast, too, as, on a recent day, he quickly navigated his way through a maze of corridors inside what he calls the Harvard medical “megalopolis” – from his office at Dana-Farber, through Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s – to the traditional, and perhaps now metaphorical, center of it all: the main atrium of Harvard Medical School.
Just off the atrium is a small office for the university’s Clinical and Translational Science Center, an ambitious effort funded by a five-year, $118 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, that was announced late last month. It is aimed at shortening the time it takes for basic scientific discoveries to be translated into patient care. Nadler is the new director of the center.
Nadler describes the center as his third act. Act one, “all about me.” Act two, “all about us, taking care of my family.” Act three, “all about them,” the physicians and researchers he’s banking on to make the “major breakthrough.”
“This is not about my achievements. This will not go under my byline,” he said as his voice took on a very un-Nadler softness. “It’s not applause for me. I’m looking forward to the day when I can stand in the audience and applaud when they succeed.”
