Stephen E. Epstein is the Head of Translational and Vascular Biology Research at the MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute,

MedStar Washington Hospital Center MedStar Washington Hospital Center is the largest private hospital in Washington, D.C. A member of MedStar Health, the not-for-profit Hospital Center is licensed for 926 beds. Health services in primary, secondary and tertiary care are offered ...

and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the

Georgetown University School of Medicine Georgetown University School of Medicine, a medical school opened in 1851, is one of Georgetown University's five graduate schools, and is the most applied-to medical school in the nation with a matriculation rate of 1.40%. It is located on Res ...

Early Education

After graduating summa cum laude from Columbia College and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Epstein took his medical training at

Cornell University Medical College Weill Cornell Medicine (; officially Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University), originally Cornell University Medical College, is the medical school of Cornell University, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in Ne ...

. He was elected to AOA, the medical honor society. Epstein interned at the New York Hospital, New York, NY.

Career

Epstein served for over 30 years as Chief of the Cardiology Branch of the

NHLBI The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland, Bethesda, Maryland, United States. It is tasked with allocating about $3.6 billion in FY 20 ...

at the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

in Bethesda, MD. He then served as Executive Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute and Director of Vascular Biology Research, at the MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington Hospital Center. He currently serves as Head of Translational Research at the MedStar Heart and Vascular Institute, MedStar Washington Hospital Center. With more than 500 publications in peer‐reviewed medical journals, Epstein is a recognized international authority on angiogenesis and on the application of stem cell strategies for cardiovascular therapeutics. His recent work on stem cell therapy has demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) when administered intravenously to mice with acute myocardial infarction and to mice with ischemic cardiomyopathy, markedly attenuate the progressive development of adverse left ventricular remodeling and deterioration in LV function. He and his associates have also demonstrated that one of the mechanisms responsible for these beneficial effects is a modulation of the excessive immune and inflammatory responses that are triggered by the presence of an injured left ventricle. These observations resulted in the initiation of two clinical trials testing the efficacy of the intravenous injection of MSCs in patients with heart failure. The observations are now being used to inform the development of novel monoclonal antibody strategies to modulate inflammation for treating patients with myocardial infarctions, patients with heart failure, and patients with various autoimmune diseases. Epstein and his colleagues have developed a biomarker strategy that identifies patients with coronary artery disease who are at very high near-term risk of experiencing death or an acute myocardial infarction.

Associations

Epstein served on two National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) committees: Vice‐Chairman of the Data Safety Management Board (DSMB) for Programs of Excellence in Gene and Cell Therapy for the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and Chairman of the DSMB for Specialized Centers for Clinically Oriented Research in Cardiac Dysfunction and Disease. Epstein is also a Fellow of the

American Heart Association The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate Heart, cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability ...

, a member of the

Association of American Physicians The Association of American Physicians (AAP) is an honorary medical society founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era for "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine ...

, and an Honorary Fellow of the

American College of Chest Physicians The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) is a medical association in the United States consisting of physicians and non-physician specialists in the field of chest medicine, which includes pulmonology, critical care medicine Intensiv ...

. He is the recipient of the Distinguished WELCOME Lecturer award, was selected for the Pfizer Visiting Professor Program.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Stephen American cardiologists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Weill Cornell Medical College alumni National Institutes of Health people American medical researchers Georgetown University Medical Center faculty