Stephen M Schwartz: professor of pathology, vascular researcher, and scientific provocateur

Abstract

Photo credit: University of Washington When Stephen Schwartz began his long career at the University of Washington in Seattle in the US, blood vessels were thought to be little more than plumbing. As his colleague Charles Murry said, “When Steve started in the 1960s and 1970s, vascular biology wasn’t a ‘thing’.” But Schwartz was fascinated by their pathology. Described by colleagues as a brilliant maverick, he became pre-eminent in vascular biology, revealing insights into smooth muscle cells and the structure of blood vessels that would underpin treatment of atherosclerosis, cancer, and other disorders. A professor of pathology at the University of Washington for over 30 years, his exacting and unconventional teaching methods produced a list of trainees that reads like a who’s who of vascular biology. Schwartz was born in Boston on New Year’s Day in 1942, to a Jewish family. His father was one of the first doctors to bring aid to concentration camp victims at the end of the second world war. Both Schwartz and his father were strong minded and had their disagreements, …