Michael N. Sack

| Education and Clinical Training | Select Professional Accomplishments | Recent Publications

Professor Michael N. Sack, MBBCh, Ph.D. joined the HRB CRF-UCC in July 2026 as the Clinical Director and joined APC Microbiome Ireland in September 2026 as a Group Leader.

Previously served as the Chief of the Cardiovascular Division and the Head of the Laboratory of Mitochondrial Biology and Metabolism at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda Maryland in the USA.

His translational research bridges the gap between molecular and biochemical metabolic mechanisms governing immune cell function and metabolism in diseases linked to cardiovascular risk. His laboratory studied how multiple nutritional interventions impacted systemic inflammation in these different diseases.

Education and Clinical Training

Medical & Early Academic Degrees: 

M.B.B.Ch. and M.Sc. from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, followed by an internship at Johannesburg General Hospital.

Residency: 

Completed his internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., USA

Fellowship & Research Training: 

Clinical fellowship and dedicated cardiology research at the Washington University Medical Center, St. Louis, MO, USA from 1994 to 1997.

Doctorate: 

Awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 2000.

Select Professional Accomplishments

Publications: 

Authored or coauthored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and expert reviews exploring cardiovascular medicine, mitochondrial biology, immunometabolism and immunity. For more on Prof. Sack's publications please click on the link below in his research profile.

Recent Publications:

• Han K, Singh K, Rodman M, Hassanzadeh S, Huffstutler RD, Seifuddin F, Dagur P, McCoy PJ, Chen J, Biancotto A, Stagliano K, Teague H, Mehta NN, Pirooznia M, Sack MN. Fasting-induced FOXO4 blunts human CD4⁺ T helper cell responsiveness. Nature Metabolism, 2021 Mar;3(3):318-326. doi: 10.1038/s42255-021-00356-0. PMID: 33723462
• Wu J, Singh K, Lin A, Meadows AM, Wu K, Shing V, Bley M, Huffstutler RD, Schmidt MS, Blanco LP, Tian R, Brenner C, Pirooznia M, Kaplan MJ, Sack MN. Boosting NAD⁺ blunts toll-like receptor-4 induced type-I interferon in control and systemic lupus erythematosus monocytes. Clin. Invest. 2022 Mar 1;132(5):e139828. doi: 10.1172/JCI139828. PMID: 35025762
• Meadows AM, Han K, Singh K, Murgia A, McNally BD, West JA, Huffstutler RD, Powell-Wiley TM, Baumer Y, Griffin JL, Sack MN. N-arachidonylglycine is a caloric state-dependent circulating metabolite which regulates human CD4⁺ T cell responsiveness. iScience. 2023:26;106578. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106578. PMID:
• Han K, Singh K, Meadows AM, Sharma R, Hassanzadeh S, Wu J, Goss-Holmes H, Huffstutler RD, Teague HL, Mehta NN, Griffin JL, Tian R, Traba J, Sack MN. Boosting NAD⁺ preferentially blunts T_H17 inflammation via arginine biosynthesis and redox control in healthy and psoriasis subjects. Cell Reports Medicine. 2023:4;101157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2023.101157. PMID:
• Pereira M, Liang J, Edward-Hicks J, Meadows AM, Hinz C, Liggi S, Hepprich M, Mudry J, Han K, Griffin JL, Fraser I, Sack MN, Hess C, Bryant CE. Arachidonic acid inhibition of the NRLP3 inflammasome is a mechanism to explain the anti-inflammatory effects of fasting. Cell Reports. 2024:43;113700. https://doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.113700. PMID: 38265935
• Walitt B, Singh K……Sack MN, …. Nath A. Deep phenotyping of post-infectious myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Nat Commun. 2024:15;907. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45107-3 PMID 8383456
• Han K, Klein RJ, Recupero TC, Ruso AC, Sharma R, Gupta AK, Hassanzadeh S, Huffstutler RD, Dagur PK, Fisk B, Redekar NR, Sack MN. NAD⁺ augmentation by nicotinamide riboside engages SLIT2/ROBO1 signaling to attenuate Th17 inflammation in psoriasis. JCI Insight. 2026:e203826. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.203826 PMID: 42048163

Professional Societies: 

Elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Association of American Physicians (AAP).

Clinical Investigations: 

He has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on over a dozen academic studies using a Bedside to Bench approach to understand the pathophysiology of human disease. As Cardiology Division Chief he was intricately involved in Clinical protocol development and regulatory oversite on studies spanning natural history protocols, interventional studies, FDA regulated studies, and community engagement protocols.