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

Inamdar VV, Alferiev I, Bratinov G, Zviman M, Yekhilevsky A, Nagaswami C, Gardiner KL, Levy RJ, Stachelek SJ, Fishbein I: Hypercholesterolemia exacerbates in-stent restenosis in rabbits: Studies of the mitigating effect of stent surface modification with a CD47-derived peptide. Atherosclerosis 2024 Notes: Ms. No. ATH-D-23-00596R2; accepted for publication.

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.

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.

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 2023 Notes: doi: 10.1007/s00246-023-03346-z.

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.

Alferiev IS, Fishbein I, Levy RJ, Chorny M : Robust Chemical Strategy for Stably Labeling Polyester-Based Nanoparticles with BODIPY Fluorophores. ACS Appl. Polym. Mater. 4(2): 1196–1206, Feb 2022.

Zakharchenko A, Xue Y, Keeney S, Rock C, Alferiev I, Stachelek S, Takano H, Thomas T, Nagaswami C, Krieger AM, Chorny M, Ferrari G, Levy RJ.: Poly-2-methyl-2-oxazoline modified bioprosthetic heart valve leaflets have enhanced biocompatibility and resist structural degeneration. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 119(6): e2120694119, Feb 2022.

Xue Y, Kossar AP, Abramov A, Frasca A, Sun M, Zyablitskaya M, Paik D, Kalfa D, Della Barbera M, Thiene G, Kozaki S, Kawashima T, Gorman JH, Gorman RC, Gillespie MJ, Carreon CK, Sanders SP, Levy RJ, Ferrari G.: Age-related enhanced degeneration of bioprosthetic valves due to leaflet calcification, tissue crosslinking, and structural changes. Cardiovasc Res Page: cvac002, Jan 10 2022 Notes: doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvac002.

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Last updated: 01/23/2024
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