Stephen Smith, a 21-year laboratory research associate in the Center for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, died Aug. 28, 2025, at 60.
His contribution to the work of a Swanson School of Engineering lab was crucial, said bioengineering department Chair Sanjeev Shroff, in whose laboratory Smith worked.
Most often, a postdoctoral fellow, such as Smith when he started, would move on to a faculty career after several years, or take a job in industry, Shroff noted. Smith chose his own path: He “was a unique kind of person. Steve really loved science, asking questions, solving problems, figuring out how things work. But he really didn’t want to be part of the academic rat race ... chasing after grants. He just wanted to do science. He would have had a solid (academic) career at the highest level. But he really was so focused on just doing science.
“For me it was a godsend to have someone like Steve” who oversaw other PhD students and cardiology fellows alongside his central research work. “We understood each other well and he could take care of much day-to-day minutia.” He recalled their work as “symbiotic,” with Smith “low key, very quiet but always having insightful discussions, and I could always rely on him.”
Smith published many papers, some with Shroff, and was co-author of a particularly significant one, Shroff said. Shroff’s lab studies the protein that regulates cardiac muscle contractions. This main protein can be modified chemically to do more or less work or behave differently, as a treatment for cardiac diseases. This has historically been done by phosphorylation. Smith — whose PhD was in biology — had long been researching this molecular mechanism by which the heart muscle generates force to do its job.
“We discovered a completely new mechanism and Steve is a co-author on that paper,” Shroff said. That process is acetylation-mediated regulation. “If we understand the mechanism, we can create a new family of drugs... to make the heart stronger,” explained Shroff.
David Gau, pathology faculty member in the School of Medicine, first saw Smith at work when Smith was a bioengineering department lecturer. As an undergraduate student here beginning in 2006, Gau was impressed by Smith’s lectures on cell signaling, proteins and lipid synthesis: “He knew his biology. He was extremely intelligent. He knew the background material very well. Ask him a question about it and he would respond immediately — he didn’t even have to stop and think about it. He knew the numbers. He knew the references of where to find the information immediately.”
When Gau was working in another lab and had joint lab meetings with Shroff’s lab, Gau and Smith collaborated on several projects. He remembered Smith as “friendly and approachable. Whenever we’d need him for anything he’d never say no. If we were missing a re-agent, if we needed an instrument, he would always be willing to help and share.
“The loss of Steve will be felt in that building,” Gau said. “He was one of the pillars of the department and of the Center for Biotechnology.”
Smith could be quiet in the lab but enjoyed conversation outside the lab. Mary Pat Imburgia, security officer with Allied Security at the Biotech Center, met Smith in 2019. Every day, on his way home, she recalled, he would stop at her desk for 40-minute chats.
“We bonded over faith and culture and politics,” said Imburgia. Smith often spoke of visiting his family and of growing up. He did talk about his work and his studies at Penn State and Pitt, but more about visiting his parents and other family members, including nephews and nieces, on the holidays, and about his weekends reading books on history, undertaking woodworking projects and watching college football games, she said.
“Steve was insightful, had a great mind and was the type of person you could learn from. He was kind, generous and a great listener. Steve was one of a kind.”
Smith earned his bachelor of science in biology in 1987 and his master of science in nutrition in 1991, both from Penn State, and his PhD in cell biology and physiology from Pitt in 2000.
After working as a graduate teaching fellow in the School of Medicine here (1993-99), Smith was a lecturer briefly at the University of Illinois–Chicago’s Urban Health Program and Department of Physiology and Biophysics before returning to Pitt Bioengineering in 2006.
He is survived by his brother, Ron Smith (Kathy), sister Susan Snavely, five nephews, a niece, and four grandnieces & nephews.
— Marty Levine