Duncan J. Stewart profile picture

Contact Information

Duncan J. Stewart, MD, FRCPC
613-737-8899 x79017
Duncan.Stewart@ohri.ca

Jennifer Valentino
Executive Assistant
jevalentino@ohri.ca

ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9113-8691

Duncan J. Stewart

Executive Vice-President, Research
The Ottawa Hospital

CEO & Scientific Director
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Professor, Dept of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine
University of Ottawa
Evelyne and Rowell Laishley Chair
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Senior Scientist, Regenerative Medicine Program
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Research Interests

Dr. Stewart has made a number of seminal discoveries elucidating the importance of endothelial factors in health and disease, notably the role of the nitric oxide system in angiogenesis and of endothelin-1 in pulmonary hypertension. He is a leader in developing cell and gene based therapies for cardiovascular disease. He led the first Canadian clinical trial to test an angiogenic gene therapy using VEGF to try to stimulate heart repair in people who had suffered heart attacks.

Dr. Stewart spearheaded the world’s first clinical trial of a gene-enhanced cell therapy for pulmonary hypertension, using endothelial progenitor cells engineered to over-express the endothelial nitric oxide synthase. He has also launched the first enhanced progenitor cell therapy trial for post heart attack repair, and his research has led to a clinical trial that will assess whether mesenchymal stromal stem cells can improve outcomes for patients with septic shock.

Brief Biography

Dr. Duncan Stewart is a pioneering Canadian cardiovascular researcher, recognized for his many important discoveries in blood vessel biology, as well as his dedication to translating these discoveries into benefits for patients and society. After beginning his career in academic cardiology at McGill University in Montreal, he moved to Toronto as Head of Cardiology at St. Michael’s Hospital and later became Director of the Division of Cardiology, and Executive Director of the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine at the University of Toronto. He was recruited to lead the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) in 2007.

Dr. Stewart has published more than 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has received a number of distinctions and prizes, including the Dexter Man Chair of Cardiology and Research Achievement Award of the University of Toronto, and the Research Achievement Award of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. Throughout his career, Dr. Stewart has demonstrated leadership in bringing diverse groups of clinicians and scientists together to put Canada on the world stage for translational cardiovascular and regenerative medicine research.

As well as serving as CEO and Scientific Director of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Dr. Stewart is a senior scientist in OHRI's Regenerative Medicine Program and holds the Evelyne and Rowell Laishley Chair. He is Vice-President of Research at The Ottawa Hospital and a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.

Selected Publications

Granton J, Langleben D, Kutryk MB, Camack N, Galipeau J, Courtman DW, Stewart DJ. Endothelial NO-synthase gene-enhanced progenitor cell therapy for pulmonary arterial hypertension: The PHACeT Trial. Circ Res. 2015 Sept 11;117(7):645-54.

Lavoie JR, Ormiston M, Perez-Iratxeta C, Courtman DW, Jiang B, Ferrer E, Caruso P, Southwood M, Foster WS, Morrell NW, Stewart DJ. Proteomic analysis implicates translationally controlled tumor protein as a novel mediator of occlusive vascular remodeling in pulmonary arterial hypertension. Circulation. 2014 May 27;129(21):2125-35.

Mei SHJ, Haitsma JJ, Dos Santos CC, Deng Y, Lai PFH, Slutsky AS, Liles WC, Stewart DJ. Mesenchymal Stem Cells Reduce Inflammation While Enhancing Bacterial Clearance and Improving Survival in Sepsis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2010 Oct 15;182(8):1047-57.

Taljaard M, Ward MR, Kutryk MJ, Courtman DW, Camack NJ, Goodman SG, Parker TG, Dick AJ, Galipeau J, Stewart DJ. Rationale and Design of ENACT-AMI: The first Randomized Placebo-controlled Trial of Enhanced Progenitor Cell Therapy for Acute Myocardial Infarction. Am Heart J. 2010 Mar;159(3):354-60.

Zhao YD, Courtman DW, Deng Y, Kugathasan L, Zhang Q, Stewart DJ. Rescue of monocrotaline-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension using bone marrow-derived endothelial-like progenitor cells: efficacy of combined cell and eNOS gene therapy in established disease. Circ Res. 2005 Mar 4;96(4):442-50.

Giaid A, Yanagisawa M, Langleben D, Michel RP, Levy R, Shennib H, Kimura S, Masaki T, Duguid WP, Stewart DJ. Expression of endothelin-1 in lungs of patients with pulmonary hypertension. New Engl J Med. 328(24): 1732-1739, 1993.

Diseases, conditions and populations of interest





Research and clinical approaches