Ross L. Levine, MD

The focus of the Levine lab is to improve our understanding of the genetic basis of myeloid malignancies, with a specific focus on the role of oncogenic disease alleles in the pathogenesis of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). As a postdoctoral fellow in Gary Gilliland’s lab, Dr. Levine used high-throughput sequence analysis of the tyrosine kinome to identify JAK2V617F and MPLW515L in the majority of MPN patients. More recently Dr. Levine’s lab has identified inherited disease alleles relevant to MPN and AML pathogenesis and characterized the effects of targeted therapies on signaling and outcome in MPN mouse models. Dr. Levine’s current efforts are focused on the following areas:

An Interview with Ross Levine Physician-scientist Ross Levine analyzes the genetic makeup of cancer cells to identify disease pathways. Learn more »

• Identification of inherited and acquired disease alleles in MPN pathogenesis
• Investigation of the role of different signaling pathways in hematopoietic transformation by activating mutations in JAK2 and MPL
• Characterization of the effects of targeted therapies in MPN models and patient samples, and elucidation of the mechanisms of resistance MPN therapies using in vitro systems in order to develop additional novel therapies for MPN patients
• Elucidation of the role of mutations in epigenetic modifiers, which impact methylation and chromatin state, in MPN/AML pathogenesis and therapeutic response