Dr. Charles J. Epstein has led major professional organizations, been the chief editor for leading scientific journals and authored award-winning textbooks. He has trained generations of physicians, genetic counselors and research scientists, and counseled and cared for families in which children have been born with syndromes resulting from genetic errors, such as Down syndrome. At the national level, as the head of the American Board of Medical Genetics (ABMG) and president of the American College of Medical Genetics (ASCMG), Epstein was a driving force behind medical genetics becoming an accredited medical specialty. Dr. Epstein continues to be honored for a lifetime of achievements in research and medicine. In March, he accepted the 2010 ASHG McKusick Leadership Award. The same March event marked the inauguration of the Charles J. Epstein Chair in Human Genetics and Pediatrics, sponsored by the Department of Pediatrics and the Institute for Human Genetics at UCSF. Dr. Epstein received numerous other honors during the course of his career. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to serving as president of the ACMG and ASHG. He served as chairman of the Residency Review Committee for Medical Genetics, was editor of the American Journal of Human Genetics and has been on many advisory panels, including the National Down Syndrome Society Science Advisory Board, which he chaired from 1979 to 2000. Dr. Epstein also was a member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (the RAC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1985 to 1990. Dr. Epstein sought to inspire hope and confidence when giving advice, with an emphasis on the simple and most essential. “Take that child home, and care for and love that child as you would any other,” he would say. Epstein’s lifelong, productive career, ultimately aimed at relieving suffering, was temporarily derailed in 1993, when a package bomb sent to his home by an anti-technology terrorist, the “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, exploded in his hands. Epstein himself has accomplished a great deal in a career spanning more than four decades. As Epstein told the roomful of admiring friends, family members and colleagues at the March celebration, “For a human geneticist, I can’t think of a better ride.”