Arnold J. Levine

Arnold J. Levine is currently a Professor Emeritus at The Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a joint Professor in the Pediatrics and Biochemistry Departments at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. He received his B.A. in Biology from Harpur College, SUNY and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

He trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow at California Institute of Technology in the laboratory of Robert Sinsheimer. Dr. Levine is a widely acclaimed leader in cancer research. In 1979, Dr. Levine and others discovered the p53 tumor suppressor protein, a molecule that inhibits tumor development. He established the Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study, which concentrates on research at the interface of molecular biology and the physical sciences: on genetics and genomics, polymorphisms and molecular aspects of evolution, signal transduction pathways and networks, stress responses, and pharmacogenomics in cancer biology. Dr. Levine helped shape U.S. science priorities as chairman of an influential 1996 review panel on federal AIDS research funding. He also chaired the National Cancer Advisory Board, which advises the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine on cancer policy. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and to its Institute of Medicine in 1995. In April 2001, Levine received the first Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, the largest annual prize in science or medicine offered in the United States. In 1968 Dr. Levine joined Princeton University as an Assistant Professor, becoming a Professor of biochemistry in 1976. In 1979, he moved to the SUNY Stony Brook School of Medicine to Chair the Department of Microbiology. He returned to Princeton in 1984. Between 1984 and 1996, he presided over a major expansion of Princeton’s life sciences programs as Chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology. From 1998 to 2002, Dr. Levine was President of The Rockefeller University.