But the latest development — when a Suffolk County jury last week unanimously awarded him $6 million in damages in his civil lawsuit against Knouse, while dismissing her claims of retaliation and harassment against him — are scenes he describes in vivid detail.
How the light went off on the court officer’s desk, indicating the jury had reached a verdict. How the clerk passed the envelope with their decision to the judge, and then back to the foreperson who read each count aloud. How he did not react to the announcement of damages awarded to him, but grabbed his brother’s hand as all of Knouse’s counts were dismissed.
“I don’t know if I still believe it, to be honest with you,” he said in a phone interview Sunday.
Knouse, contacted through her lawyer, Ellen Zucker, declined to comment. She will appeal the ruling, Zucker said.
The last five years, as Sabatini fell from a prominent biologist who generated Nobel Prize buzz to an outsider who schools refused to work with, were “the hardest years of my life,” he said.
The three-week trial included grueling testimony, where some former lab members said Sabatini fueled a toxic and sexually charged lab culture, and others praised his mentorship.
He was once Knouse’s mentor, too — first meeting her when she was a graduate student and he directed a high-profile lab at the Whitehead. In a counter lawsuit, she asserted that he coerced her into a nonconsensual relationship and abused his position of power.
A few years ago, Sabatini rebuilt a lab in the Czech Republic, thanks to Bill Ackman, a New York hedge fund billionaire, who pledged $25 million over five years alongside an anonymous donor, to get Sabatini back on track. But when he got the keys to his new space in Prague, it was an empty room, and Sabatini found it hard to hire folks to fill it.
“I started from zero,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I had a lab that was doing crystallography, chemistry, mouse work, working on ovarian cancer, Parkinson’s’.”
He has since launched a second lab in Boston and travels back and forth between the two on “way too many airplanes,” he said. “I miss my son. I miss my family, and I’m always jet lagged.”
Now, Ackman — who has been highly critical of elite institutions, including MIT — is among those staunchly defending Sabatini online and calling on the university to explain itself.
In a series of posts on X, Ackman called on MIT to fire Ruth Lehmann, the director of the Whitehead Institute, and for the school to publicly answer whether or not they would reinstate Sabatini’s tenure and terminate Knouse.
“In light of what has transpired in this grave miscarriage of justice, MIT has the opportunity and the obligation to right a serious wrong here,” Ackman wrote.
Ackman, reached through his company spokesperson, had no further comment.
“Bill saved my life,” said Sabatini, who denied speculation that Ackman helped fund his legal defense.
It is unclear how Knouse, who is currently an assistant professor of biology at MIT and a faculty member of its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, will pay for the $6 million in damages awarded to Sabatini, plus interest.
In response to the verdict, Kimberly Allen, a spokeswoman for MIT, said that the Whitehead Institute “is an independent non-profit research institution, with its own facility” and that the university was not a party in Sabatini’s original lawsuit — which was filed against Knouse, the Whitehead, and Lehmann, the director.
In a statement, the Whitehead Institute’s board of directors said it has “full confidence” in Lehmann’s leadership and its workplace policies, which included the investigation into Sabatini’s lab. The court previously dismissed all claims made by Sabatini against the institute.
The university stood by its previous public comments about the matter, with a letter from then-president L. Rafael Reif. Reif wrote that “Sabatini behaved in ways incompatible with the responsibilities of faculty membership,” announcing Sabatini’s decision to step down in 2022, after a review committee recommended his tenure be revoked.
Sabatini said he would like to see more “accountability in how these decisions are made, more transparency,” from MIT and the Whitehead.
“I was clearly in a situation where it was OK to throw me aside,” he said. “I did not matter there. I think anyone can find themselves in that situation.”
Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, was among a chorus of scientists chiming in on social media, with a post on X asking what the jury verdict implies about the validity of MIT’s response to Sabatini at the time.
In a written statement, he said he had “significant prior concerns about due process of the investigation.”
For Sabatini, the verdict felt vindicating, but thinking about MIT still comes with memories of dear friends, “amazing students, amazing colleagues,” he said. That includes Knouse, who he called his “best friend in Boston,” sharing that she played video games and baked blondies with his now-teenage son.
“A big part of me still wishes her very well,” he said.
As for his old lab, he recalls a “nice place,” where he had no regrets. He was able to train students to pursue their own research and nearly 50 former members of his lab lead their own now.
“It was definitely a hard-working lab, definitely very hard. People had passion,“ he said. ”Were silly, dumb things done sometimes? Yes. But was there cruelty and was there meanness? There was not.”
The last five years have changed him — thinned his hair and taken a physical and mental toll — but if offered the chance to return to MIT, to “be made whole” and continue to train the next generation of scientists, would he?
“The answer is yes,” he said. “But under the right conditions.”
Michaela Towfighi can be reached at michaela.towfighi@globe.com. Follow her on X @michaelatowfghi.