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Professor Emeritus of Human Genetics |
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| 4909 Buhl 1241 E. Catherine St. SPC 5618 Ann Arbor , MI 48109 -5618 |
Phone: 734-647-3149 Email: mylevine@umich.edu |
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Dr. Myron Levine was a faculty member of the University of Michigan since 1961 brought to the Department of Human Genetics and to this university the discipline of prokaryotic molecular genetics. First introduced to the field of genetics through studies on Paramecium with the legendary Tracy Sonneborn at Indiana University, Dr. Levine came under the influence of the group of physicists and biologists gathered at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratories who had seized upon bacterialphages as the ideal subject with which to probe the central secrets of genetics. The nature of the gene, its mode of action and regulation, and the concept of a genetic code were discoveries of the Phage School that transformed modern biology.
Dr. Levine's contributions to this field were made through genetic and molecular biological analysis of bacteriophage P22, a virus of the Salmonella bacteria. Beginning in the late 1950's he and his students isolated mutants in phage P22, established a linkage map of its genes, and initiated a brilliant study of how this phage achieves lysogeny, the continuous maintenance of the viral genome within an infected Salmonella cell and its progeny. Dr. Levine succeeded in describing the complex program of
molecular events required for lysogeny, including sequential gene activation and recombination of phage and cell DNA. Recognizing the close analogy of phage lysogeny to the phenomenon of viral latency in human infections, Dr. Levine then made major contributions to the study of the human herpes simplex virus.
Dr. Levine was a popular and respected mentor of predoctoral and postdoctoral students. His students constitute an impressive array of contemporary geneticists and virologists, including many national leaders in these fields and a Nobel laureate. His leadership of the Graduate Program in Cell and Molecular Biology for a fifteen-year period was critical to this program's success. His advice and counsel have been valuable to the Department of Human Genetics in its development over the past three decades.
The Medical School and the University have recognized the talents and achievements of Dr. Levine, conferring on him both the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award (1980) and the Distinguished Faculty Lectureship in Biomedical Research (1987).
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