Dr. Tabak is the principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the deputy ethics councilor of the Agency. He previously served as the acting principal deputy director of NIH (2009), and prior to that as director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research from 2000-10.

Dr. Tabak has provided leadership for numerous trans-NIH activities, including the NIH Roadmap effort to support team science, the NIH Director’s initiative to enhance peer-review, and the NIH’s implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He co-chaired working groups of the Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH on the Diversity of the Biomedical Research Workforce and Information Technology and Informatics. Dr. Tabak has been leading the NIH effort to enhance the rigor and reproducibility of biomedical research. Most recently he led a trans-NIH team responsible for developing a 5-year Strategic Plan for the Agency. Dr. Tabak is currently serving as the interim program director of the trans-NIH effort to study the environmental influences on child health outcomes (termed ECHO).

Prior to joining NIH, Dr. Tabak was the senior associate dean for research and professor of dentistry and biochemistry & biophysics in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester in New York. A former NIH MERIT recipient, Dr. Tabak’s major research focus has been on the structure, biosynthesis and function of glycoproteins. He continues work in this area, maintaining an active research laboratory within the NIH intramural program, in addition to his administrative duties.

Dr. Tabak is an elected member the National Academy of Medicine (formerly, the IOM). He received his undergraduate degree from City College of New York, his D.D.S. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo.