Herbert Tabor

Herbert Tabor (November 28, 1918 – August 20, 2020) was an American biochemist and physician-scientist who specialized in the function of polyamines and their role in human health and disease. Tabor was a principal investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases where he was Chief of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology. He was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 1971 to 2010.

Education Tabor was born in New York City in 1918. Tabor received a Bachelor of Arts at Harvard College in 1937 and a Doctor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1941. He was a researcher in the department of biological chemistry at HMS in 1941.

Tabor was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 1971 to 2010. Under his direction the journal expanded from 1,000 to 4,500 published articles per annum. He led the transition to online publishing in 1995. In 1986, Tabor and his wife, Celia White Tabor, won the Hillebrand Prize from the Chemical Society of Washington. In 1995, they received a William C. Rose Award.

Personal life Tabor married physician-scientist Celia White in 1946. The couple had met through common friends six years earlier on a Boston streetcar. They moved to the NIH campus in 1949 where they raised their daughter and three sons. Celia White Tabor died in 2012. Tabor died at his home on the NIH campus on August 20, 2020.