‘On call for brain retrievals’: the man who gets American football players examined for CTE after death

Chris Nowinski in his home office in Boynton Beach, Florida, in January 2023. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

Shortly after news broke that a shooter had breached the New York City skyscraper where the NFL is headquartered and killed four people before turning the gun on himself, Chris Nowinski was called to duty.

A former Harvard football player and professional wrestler turned neuroscientist, Nowinski helped establish the Unite Brain Bank at Boston University. It is the world’s largest repository of brain samples dedicated to the study of CTE – or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive neurodegenerative disease linked to repetitive hits to the head and concussions. Some 1,600 brains have been examined there, with Nowinski helping to facilitate donations.