Stephen Chan, MD, PhD, serves as the Vitalant Chair in Vascular Medicine and Professor of Medicine as well as Director of the Vascular Medicine Institute (VMI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC.

Scholarship: Dr. Chan is a physician-scientist and cardiologist who leads a basic and translational research program and clinical center investigating the mechanisms of pulmonary hypertension (PH) and endothelial biology. More recently, Dr. Chan’s lab has been studying the mechanisms by which the heart-lung-brain axis communicates in health and disease. To do so, Dr. Chan uses computational theory to study gene network architecture and couple these insights with unique experimental reagents derived from genetically altered rodent and human subjects. By combining in silico network biology approaches with in vivo mechanistic discovery, Dr. Chan has defined the systems-level functions of non-coding RNAs and downstream pathways controlling metabolism, mechanosignaling, and inflammation as root causes of vascular disease and pulmonary hypertension (PH). These findings have led to new methods implemented to identify persons at-risk for PH and to the development of new molecular therapies targeting these pathogenic causes. This work is also the cornerstone of evolving applications of network theory to the discovery of RNA-based origins of human diseases, in general. Dr. Chan has published first author and senior author articles of original research across high impact journals (including Science, Cell, Circ Res, Cell Rep, Science Adv, Science Transl Med, and multiple manuscripts in J Clin Invest, Circulation, Chest, and Cell Metab). He has carried grants as PI, including multiple NIH R-level, U-level, and P-level (project leader) grants as well as the American Heart Association (AHA) Established Investigator Award and the Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) Award. He is an elected Fellow of the AHA and American Thoracic Society (ATS), American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), American Association of Physicians (AAP), and the Association of University Cardiologists (AUC).

Teaching and Education: Dr. Chan has served as a primary mentor for over 35 trainees over the past 10 years, including undergraduate, pre-doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, clinical residents and fellows, and early career faculty. These mentees have attained numerous first authorships in high impact peer-reviewed publications of original research (including Science, J Clin Invest, Circulation, Circ Res, EMBO Mol Med, Science Adv, and others), oral/poster abstract presentations at national and international conferences, and young investigator awards from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the AHA. His post-doctoral mentees have been funded by AHA career development award (CDA), as well as the NIH K- (K99/R00 and K08) and R38 programs, and many have progressed to establish extramural funding and independent research careers. Over the past five years, three of Dr. Chan’s pre-doctoral students have been successfully funded by NIH F30 awards; three were awarded the Basic Science Young Investigator Award from the American College of Cardiology (2020, 2021, 2024); one was awarded the 2022 Cournand and Comroe Early Investigator Award at the AHA, and one was awarded the 2024 Rupert Swift Award by the Pulmonary Vascular Research Institute (PVRI). As VMI Director, Dr. Chan serves as Co-Director for the T32 bioengineering program, and he holds a principal role in the long-standing VMI T32 post-doctoral program and NIH-funded PURDIP program for STEM research training of undergraduate students. VMI trainees have held 17 total career development awards, with 14 active awards in the last year.

Administration and Entrepreneurship: Dr. Chan is the director of the VMI, a multi-disciplinary research institute with 40 principal and affiliated faculty. Consistent with a vision to grow multi-disciplinary research at the VMI across new programmatic scientific pipelines, Dr. Chan raised >$20M of new philanthropic support across three program projects studying circadian pathobiology and mechanisms that mediate a heart-brain-lung molecular axis in health and disease. Dr. Chan has increased entrepreneurship activity at the VMI to embed an entrepreneur-in-residence and Innovation Board, advising on commercialization of VMI technology. This has accelerated IP filings and founding of new VMI startup companies, including Dr. Chan’s Synhale Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing next generation therapies for cardiopulmonary vascular disease.

Clinically, Dr. Chan has served as Director of the UPMC Comprehensive Pulmonary Hypertension Program and Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine, a multi-disciplinary operation across multiple medical divisions. Currently, the program directs the clinical care of over 1,200 PH patients via 12 providers. Since 2016, under Dr. Chan’s direct leadership, the program attained the designation of a Pulmonary Hypertension Association-accredited Comprehensive Care Center, thus solidifying UPMC’s reputation as a global clinical leader in PH.

Service: Nationally, Dr. Chan has served on the AHA 3CPR Council Leadership Committee, ATS Pulmonary Circulation Leadership Committee, and was Chair of the NIH RIBT study section. He has been named as Deputy Editor for JCI Insight and serves on the Editorial Board for AJP-Lung and Circ Res. Dr. Chan is a founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of The Addis Clinic, Inc., a non-profit organization designed to provide medical care to impoverished east African patients via telemedicine.