School of Medicine Community Mourns Passing of Richard Horenstein, MD, JD

Richard B. Horenstein, MD, JD, Associate Professor of Medicine at UM SOM, passed away on March 23, 2017.  A graduate of Yale Law School and Jefferson Medical College, and a Fellow in Endocrinology at the UM Medical Center.  He had extensive experience in clinical research and had implemented several large translational gene x environment and pharmacogenetics studies at the UM SOM.

Dr. Horenstein received an NIH Bench to Bedside award, the focus of which was to translate basic genetic findings into the clinical arena. Dr. Horenstein had substantial expertise in cardiovascular pharmacogenomics where he led or participated in several investigations including the first NHLBI sponsored prospective pharmacogenetics trial (the COAG Study) where he was the University of Maryland site PI and served both on the study’s Steering Committee and as Chair of the Measurement and Quality Assurance Subcommittee.

In his role at the University of Maryland Amish Research Clinic, he performed detailed phenotyping of carriers of rare gene variants, including studies that use high fat feedings, plant sterol supplements, and IVGTTs to assess the effect of these variants on fasting and post prandial lipid, glucose, and inflammatory marker measures. He was active in recent efforts to translate pharmacogenetics findings into the clinics and serves as a member of the Pharmacogenetics Service. 

He will be greatly missed by everyone in the SOM Community.

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