Ronald Levy is an American medical doctor and scientist at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He specializes in lymphoma, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma,

Burkitt's lymphoma Burkitt lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system, particularly B lymphocytes found in the germinal center. It is named after Denis Parsons Burkitt, the Irish surgeon who first described the disease in 1958 while working in equatorial Africa. ...

and

Hodgkin's disease Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma, in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, where multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells (RS cells) are present in the patient's lymph nodes. The condition wa ...

. His research investigates how the immune system can be harnessed to fight lymphoma. His work has led to the concept that antibodies can be used as personalized anticancer drugs and to the development of an antibody-based drug, Rituxan, that is widely used to treat lymphoma.

Personal

He is currently married and has 3 daughters.

Education

Levy received an A.B. degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University in 1963, and an M.D. from the

Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Francisco in 1858. This ...

in 1968. He did his residency and internship at the

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

, and is board-certified in oncology by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Honors and awards

Levy's work has been recognized with multiple honors and awards, including the King Faisal International Prize, the Damashek Prize, the American Cancer Society's Medal of Honor, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's di Villiers International Achievement Award, the C. Chester Stock Award from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and others. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the Institute of Medicine.

King Faisal International Prize in Medicine

In 2009 Levy was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine, sometimes called the "Arab Nobel Prize". He was awarded the prize for his work on Rituxan. In an interview with ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

'', Levy said that he was very surprised when he was notified by the prize committee about his victory. He was awarded $200,000, a medal, and a certificate in English and Arabic. He and his family were invited to visit Saudi Arabia and have dinner with the Saudi King Abdullah. Levy's wife is Israeli and one of his daughters was born in Israel, yet his family and he were able to travel to Saudi Arabia with no problems. They were "treated to royal hospitality." Coincidentally, the King Faisal International Prize was first awarded 30 years ago, around the same time that Levy began his work in this field. However, despite these statements by Dr. Levy, the King Faisal Award had been awarded previously to individuals who happened to be Jews without any controversy, a notable example being Sydney Brenner who won the award in 1992.

References

External links