Nabila Bouatia-Naji investigated the genetics of several cardiometabolic traits at the beginning of her career when she made seminal discoveries about the genetic determinants of fasting glucose, childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes, including a pioneering genetic study that linked for the first time the control of circadian rhythm and the genetic risk of type 2 diabetes. On 2011, she moved her research toward the field of genetics of cardiovascular disease, when she joined the INSERM-PARCC. She initially worked on the genetics of mitral valve prolapse, as a member of a Leducq Network, a transatlantic network of Excellence about this important valvulopathy and provided seminal work on its genetic and molecular basis.

Nabila Bouatia-Naji current efforts are focused on the study of the genetics of atypical vascular diseases with high prevalence in women, mainly for fibromusuclar dysplasia and spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD). Her multidisciplinary team includes statistical geneticists, molecular biologists and clinicians uses cutting-edge statistical genetics and functional genomics methods applied in high through-put cell models. In the last decade, she established the genetic models for these diseases and identified their first genetic causes that she is currently following up and modelling using high throughput iPS derived vascular cells. She authored over 90 publications and is a recognized researcher in the genetics of women specific cardiovascular disease. She is an active advocate for more leadership opportunities for women in health sciences, and generally in STEM.