Beth Levine (physician) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Beth Levine
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| Born | April 7, 1960 |
| Died | June 15, 2020 (aged 60) |
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| Known for | Identified the mammalian autophagy gene BECN1/beclin 1 |
| Spouse(s) | Milton Packer |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | The American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award (1994); election into the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2000); the Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholars Award in Global Infectious Diseases (2004); elected member, American Association of Physicians (2005); appointment as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (2008); Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Medicine (2008); elected fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012); election into the National Academy of Sciences (2013); election into the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (2013); the ASCI Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award (2014); Phyllis T. Bodel Women in Medicine Award, Yale University School of Medicine (2018); recipient, Barcroft Medal, Queen’s University Belfast (2018). |
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Beth Cindy Levine (April 7, 1960 – June 15, 2020) was an American microbiologist. She was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology, Director of the Center for Autophagy Research and Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She specialized in the field of autophagy; more specifically in its regulation and its role in diverse diseases, including cancer and infectious diseases. Levine was described as a pioneer in the field of modern mammalian autophagy.
Biography
Beth Levine was born on April 7, 1960 in Newark, New Jersey. She grew up in New Jersey with older brothers, before graduating high school a year early. Levine died at home on June 15, 2020 from breast cancer. She is survived by her husband, Milton Packer, and children Rachel and Ben.
Education
Beth Levine graduated magna cum laude in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in French studies from Brown University. She then went on to complete her M.D. at Cornell University Medical College, New York. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and her fellowship in "infectious diseases and the pathogenesis of neurotropic viruses" at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
Career
Beth Levine served as Director of Virology Research at Columbia University from 1994 to 2004, and Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center from 2004–2011. She served as a professor of internal medicine and microbiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center up until the time of her death. Levine created the Gordon Conference on Autophagy in Stress, Development, and Disease in 2003.
In her research, Levine frequently performed cross-disciplinary experiments that opened the door to new areas for investigation. She experimented with a wide array of systems, including yeast, plant, nematode, mouse, and human. Levine discovered the first mammalian autophagy gene, Beclin 1, and later went on to directly associate this gene with the protein Bcl-2. This association provided significant implications in the realm of cell survival.
Levine and her team also made significant contributions in several selective fields of autophagy, including virophagy, xenophagy, and mitophagy, and she is credited for coining the term xenophagy. These contributions provided a greater understanding of the role of autophagy pathways in diseases like neurodegeneration, inflammatory disorders, and cancers. Levine's lab also worked on developing therapeutics for these diseases, including Tat-Beclin, an autophagy-inducing peptide.
