Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH
Simon and Bessie Grollman Distinguished Professor and Founder and Former Director, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Myron “Mike” Levine has been a pioneer in the field of vaccinology over a 55-year career at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), making fundamental and innovative contributions to research on infectious diseases, vaccine development, and vaccine implementation.
Dr. Levine arrived at UMSOM’s Division of Infectious Diseases in 1970 as an epidemic intelligence service officer on assignment from the Center for Disease Control to perform clinical trials of candidate Shigella vaccines before fulfilling a long-term assignment in El Salvador. From 1970-73, he was a fellow in infectious diseases and then joined the UMSOM faculty as an assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics.
In 1974, Levine and professor Richard B. Hornick, MD, co-founded the Clinical Center for Vaccine Development to test vaccines for safety and immunogenicity in community volunteers. In 1976, after the establishment of laboratories to construct vaccine candidates, measure immune responses, and perform clinical microbiology, this entity became the Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), with Levine as director. CVD became the world’s largest academic multidisciplinary vaccinology entity, where the emerging discipline of vaccinology was pursued from basic research to public health intervention. Sister CVD institutions were established in Chile and Mali.
For five decades, Levine has overseen research on major infectious diseases that afflict children and adults in developing countries including cholera, typhoid fever, Shigella dysentery, diarrhea caused by certain categories of Escherichia coli, and invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella. He pioneered the use of human challenge models with various pathogens in community adult volunteers in a research isolation ward to preliminarily assess the efficacy of candidate vaccines against these pathogens, thereby de-risking the performance of expensive large-scale (often multi-year) field trials of efficacy.
The breadth of Levine’s contributions cover basic research, clinical vaccinology, epidemiology, and public health. His stature in the field of vaccinology is attested by 50 years of peer-reviewed research grants, more than 740 scientific publications in leading journals, scores of book chapters, dozens of patents, and the creation of the evidence base for FDA licensure of a live oral typhoid vaccine (Ty21a, developed by a Swiss vaccinologist) and for live oral cholera vaccine CVD 103-HgR.
Since 2000 alone, Levine has been the principal investigator for more than $300 million in grants/contracts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Department of Defense, Rockefeller Foundation, and vaccine companies.
Internationally, he has served on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Steering Committee on Diarrhoeal Disease Vaccines, chair of WHO’s Working Group on Mucosal Vaccines, and chair of WHO’s Technical Advisory Group for Candidate Vaccine Prioritization. He helped establish the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations and has served on multiple National Academy of Medicine committees and NIH advisory committees and blue-ribbon panels.
Among his numerous honors, Levine was an early recipient (1998) of the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, the highest scientific honor awarded by the Sabin Vaccine Institute, and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1995. He received a Maryland Governor’s Citation in 1999, was one of Baltimore magazine’s 10 Baltimoreans of the Year in 2001, and received the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) 1995 Life Sciences Achievement Award and 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Levine earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the City College of New York, his MD from the Medical College of Virginia (now Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine), and his Diploma in Tropical Public Health from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is board-certified in pediatrics and preventive medicine.
