Robert J. Levy, MD

faculty photo
Professor of Pediatrics (Cardiology)
Department: Pediatrics
Graduate Group Affiliations

Contact information
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Abramson Pediatric Research Center - 702D
3615 Civic Center Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19104-4318
Office: 215-590-6119
Fax: 215-590-5454
Education:
M.D.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1970.
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Description of Research Expertise

Research Summary
Heart Valve Disease: Research programs underway concerning the developmental basis for aortic valve disease, mechanistic studies of progression of calcific aortic stenosis, serotonin mechanisms in heart valve disease, and novel biomaterials for heart valve prostheses.

Gene delivery stents are an area of major interest: plasmid or viral vectors configured in sustained release preparations onto vascular stents for site specific vascular gene therapy.

Magnetic delivery of nanoparticles for pharmaceutical and cell therapy to treat arterial disease.

Selected Publications

Alferiev IS, Zhang K, Folchman-Wagner Z, Adamo RF, Guerrero DT, Fishbein I, Soberman D, Levy RJ, Chorny M.: Nanocarrier Design for Dual-Targeted Therapy of In-Stent Restenosis. Pharmaceutics 16(2): 188, Jan 2024 Notes: doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics16020188. PMID: ; PMCID: .

Dienstman J, Stachelek SJ, Krieger AM, Eskandanian K, Espinoza JC, Harrison MR, Koh CJ, Peiris V, Torjusen E, Levy RJ.: Pediatric Device Clinical Trials Activity 1999-2022. Pediatrics 154(2): e2023063466, Aug 2024 Notes: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-063466.

Fishbein I, Inamdar VV, Alferiev IS, Bratinov G, Zviman MM, Yekhilevsky A, Nagaswami C, Gardiner KL, Levy RJ, Stachelek SJ.: Hypercholesterolemia exacerbates in-stent restenosis in rabbits: Studies of the mitigating effect of stent surface modification with a CD47-derived peptide. Atherosclerosis 390: 117432, Mar 2024 Notes: j.atherosclerosis.2023.117432_

Castillero E, Camillo C, Levine D, D’Angelo AM, Kosuri Y, Grau JB, Levy RJ, Ferrari G.: Serotonin transporter deficiency in mice results in an increased susceptibility to HTR2B-dependent pro-fibrotic mechanisms in the cardiac valves and left ventricular myocardium. Cardiovasc. Pathology 2024 Notes: (Accepted) in press.

Singh SK, Faridmoayer E, Vitale N, Woodard E, Xue Y, Abramov A, Levy RJ, Ferrari G.: Valved Conduits for Right Ventricular Outflow Tract Reconstruction: A Review of Current Technologies and Future Directions. Pediatr Cardiol 10(1007): s00246-023-03346-z, Dec 2 2023 Notes: doi: 10.1007/s00246-023-03346-z.

Abramov A, Xue Y, Zakharchenko A, Kurade MS, Soni R, Levy RJ, Ferrari G.: Bioprosthetic heart valve structural degeneration associated with metabolic syndrome: mitigation with polyoxazoline modification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 120(1): e2219054120, Jan 2023 Notes: pnas.2219054120.

Castillero E, Fitzpatrick E, Keeney SJ, D’Angelo AM, Pressly BB, Simpson MT, Kurade M, Erwin WC, Moreno V, Camillo C, Shukla HJ, Inamdar VV, Aghali A, Grau JB, Salvati E, Nissim I, Rauova L, Oyama MA, Stachelek SJ, Brown C, Krieger AM, Levy RJ, Ferrari G.: Decreased serotonin transporter activity in the mitral valve contributes to progression of degenerative mitral regurgitation. Science Transl Med. 15(677): eadc9606, Jan 4 2023 Notes: doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adc9606.

Alferiev IS, Hooshdaran B, Pressly BB, Zoltick PW, Stachelek SJ, Chorny M, Levy RJ, Fishbein I.: Intraprocedural endothelial cell seeding of arterial stents via biotin/avidin targeting mitigates in-stent restenosis. Sci Rep. 12(1): 19212, Nov 2022 Notes: doi: s41598-022-23820-7.

Zakharchenko A, Rock CA, Thomas TE, Keeney S, Hall EJ, Takano H, Krieger AM, Ferrari G, Levy RJ: Inhibition of advanced glycation end product formation and serum protein infiltration in bioprosthetic heart valve leaflets: Investigations of anti-glycation agents and anticalcification interactions with ethanol pretreatment. Biomaterials 289: 121782, Oct 2022 Notes: doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2022.121782.

Hooshdaran B, Pressly BB, Alferiev IS, Smith JD, Zoltick PW, Tschabrunn CM, Wilensky RL, Gorman RC, Levy RJ, Fishbein I : Stent-Based Delivery of AAV2 Vectors Encoding Oxidation-Resistant apoA1 Sci. Rep. 12(1): 5464, Mar 2022.

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Last updated: 08/23/2024
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