Stephen C. Textor, MD
June 3, 1948 - February 28, 2024
Dr Stephen C. Textor, a compassionate physician, brilliant scientist, and humble and effective mentor to many, passed away at 75 years surrounded by his family on February 28, 2024, in North Central Florida, where he resided after his retirement. Dr Textor was a Professor of Medicine and a distinguished member of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN. He had worldwide recognition in the Hypertension Community thanks to his lifetime commitment to the care of patients with hypertension, the innovative strategies that he pioneered, his selfless dedication to teaching the next generation of hypertension specialists, as well as due to his extensive training and faculty experiences in the field of hypertension.
Dr Textor was born on June 3, 1948, in Denver, Colorado, to Dr Jerome Textor, MD, and Margaret Sias, and subsequently grew up in Minnesota where his father practiced medicine. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Stanford University (1969) and his MD degree from the School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (1973). Throughout his undergraduate and graduate education, Dr Textor was on the Dean's List or a Regent's Scholar and belonged to Honorary Societies. He completed his Medical Residency (1976) and Nephrology fellowship (1978) at Boston University and was selected to spend 2 years (1978 and 1979) as an International Fellow of the Swiss National Science Postdoctoral Foundation at Hospitalier University Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland. After this extensive training, Dr Textor held faculty, staff, and leadership positions at the Cleveland Clinic, the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California, and the University of California, Irvine. In 1988, Dr Textor was recruited to the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, where he rapidly rose in the ranks to a full professor (1998) and served 4 years as vice-chair.
Dr Textor was a nationally and internationally recognized expert and completed extensive research in the areas of renal physiology, renovascular hypertension, ischemic nephropathy, posttransplant hypertension, kidney transplantation, hypertension in kidney donors, and the clinical use of antihypertensive agents. His reputation as an outstanding clinician-investigator was evidenced not only by his numerous publications and a textbook that he edited in 2014 but also by his abundant presentations at international and national meetings, where he was an engaging and sought-after speaker. The clinical expertise of Dr Textor was reflected by both his large referral practice and by his selection to receive the prestigious Laureate Award for Clinical Excellence from the Department of Medicine at Mayo Clinic Rochester and the Marvin Moser Award from the American Society of Hypertension.
Throughout his career, Dr Textor pursued and made substantial research and clinical contributions to the field of hypertension, with a special focus on blood pressure regulation, renovascular hypertension, and the role of medical therapy versus revascularization in the management of atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis. One of the central enigmas that Dr Textor has successfully tackled and resolved was the role of hypoxia in ischemic nephropathy, for which he used and developed powerful imaging techniques. Dr Textor's studies used sophisticated clinically translatable techniques such as computed tomography to assess single-kidney measures of cortical and medullary perfusion combined with blood oxygen level–dependent magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate tissue oxygenation in human subjects with renal artery stenosis and renovascular hypertension. Being a clinician in the area of hypertension, it is remarkable that Dr Textor undertook and spearheaded the evaluation and development of highly sophisticated imaging techniques. Under Stephen's leadership, his team has found novel ways to identify developing kidney hypoxia and its reversibility upon revascularization of renal artery stenosis.
Dr Textor also developed a keen interest in the role of inflammation in patients with renovascular hypertension. In a series of studies, he showed that renal vein effluent from poststenotic human kidneys has multiple markers reflecting active inflammation that portends kidney injury and reduced function. He has elegantly demonstrated that despite the reversal of renal hypoxia and partial restoration of renal blood flow after revascularization, both inflammatory cytokines and injury biomarkers remained elevated and glomerular filtration rate failed to recover in these patients.
His innovative approach subsequently extended to the development of novel therapeutic approaches. Based on his observation of limited repair capacity in kidneys with renovascular disease, Dr Textor pursued the development of stem cell therapy for the poststenotic kidney in renal artery stenosis in a pioneering study and the first stem cell therapy trial for this disease. In parallel, Dr Textor explored the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in ischemia-reperfusion injury due to revascularization of the stenotic renal artery in human subjects. He championed a clinical trial using a novel mitochondria-targeted peptide to treat these patients. These endeavors again demonstrated the extraordinary breadth of Dr Textor's knowledge and his remarkable ability to take on complex basic research techniques and bridge them over to the clinical care discipline.
In addition to breakthrough research studies, Dr Textor provided critically important services to the Hypertension community in the areas of education and leadership. Within the American Society of Nephrology, Dr Textor's contributions included service as section editor of the Nephrology Self-Assessment Program in Hypertension, membership in the Hypertension Advisory group, membership in the program committee for the annual meeting, and session chairmanship at the annual meeting. Dr Textor was an active member, leader, and contributor to the American Board of Internal Medicine in Nephrology Subspecialty Board Examination preparation and practice improvement modules for hypertension and nephrology. He was a Fellow of the Council on Hypertension in the American Heart Association and an active member of committees in that organization and the American Society of Hypertension. He also aided in ongoing education for nephrology professionals with his service as a reviewer for numerous prestigious medical journals and as section editor of the medical publication UpToDate.
Besides his many clinical and scientific accomplishments, Dr Textor was an avid sportsman and pursued many pastime adventures such as white-water kayaking, canoeing, helicopter skiing, backpacking, and rock climbing. In particular, Stephen's favorite hobby was aviation, and having earned a pilot's license in 1973, he maintained an aircraft with friends in Minnesota for over 30 years. Incredibly, in 1977, Dr Textor was recognized as a finalist for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Mission Specialist program.
Dr Textor married Susan L. Bertram, RN, MSN, in 1979, and they were blessed with 3 children: their son Lieutenant Colonel Matthew J. Textor, JD (who is married to Barbara N. Wold, JD, and they have 2 children, Charles and Eleanor); son Kyle B. Textor, MBA; and daughter Dr Lauren M. Textor, MD, PhD.
Dr Textor was one of those rare and unique individuals with the expertise, credibility, and experience in clinical practice, research, education, and leadership in the regional, national, and international arenas. Dr Textor's innovative translational research and clinical practice have significantly shifted paradigms in hypertension research. Moreover, Dr Textor's warm, genuine, and generous personality has earned him many friends, colleagues, and mentees who have cherished him dearly. He will be greatly missed by all.
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