Arnold J. Levine Receives a 2021 ASPIRE Award

Professor Emeritus Arnold J. Levine has received a 2021 ASPIRE Award from the Mark Foundation for his work on breast cancer research. Along with past Institute Member Steven Altschuler (1992-93) and Benjamin Greenbaum (2008-13, 2017-21), Levine enters a class of twenty-five researchers who are recognized across cancer research disciplines for their innovative solutions and feasible applications.

Levine was granted the award for his leadership on a project examining breast cancer samples from patients with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a disorder which has a lifetime rate of cancer that’s over seventy percent—and among women, breast cancer rates of around ninety percent, between the ages of eighteen and forty. Levine and his team are using immunohistochemical imaging to research LFS patients’ immune response to hormone responsive breast cancer and triple negative breast cancer, with the hope of improving their diagnostic and therapeutic options.

The initiator of the Institute’s Simons Center for Systems Biology, Levine’s research in the School of Natural Sciences includes molecular biology, the physical sciences, genetics and genomics, polymorphisms and molecular aspects of evolution, signal transduction pathways and networks, stress responses, and pharmacogenomics in cancer biology.

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research partners with scientists working on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. They fund “basic and translational cancer research that bridges the gap between bench and bedside through grants and venture investments.” This year’s awards mark the foundation’s expansion into Australia, Sweden, and Spain, including projects from academic institutions in seven different countries.

ASPIRE projects that are successful and demonstrate proof of concept are eligible for additional funding.