VMBS Department Head Receives National Veterinary Research Award
Story by Megan Myers, VMBS Communications
Dr. Jonathan Levine, head of the Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences at the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (VMBS), was selected to receive the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians’ (AAVC) Annual Faculty Achievement in Research Award.
This award recognizes AAVC members who have achieved national recognition through their efforts on behalf of veterinary medicine. Recipients are selected based on practice recognition awards; research excellence and publications in peer-reviewed journals; leadership and participation in organized veterinary medicine; and participation in AAVC, specifically.
Levine, who also serves as a professor and the Helen McWhorter Chair in Small Animal Clinical Sciences, is a board-certified veterinary neurologist who specializes in spinal cord injuries and neuro-oncology.
“Dr. Levine’s research has been extremely influential in the treatment of brain and spinal cord tumors in both dogs and human beings,” said Dr. John R. August, the Carl B. King Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M. “He is also an impressive leader of his department, one of the key figures in our campaign for a new Small Animal Teaching Hospital, and a valuable practitioner in the hospital’s Neurology Service. I congratulate Dr. Levine on receiving this well-deserved honor.”
Levine’s recent research projects have focused on gliomas, or tumors in the brain and spinal cord. By analyzing a large dataset of glioma samples, he determined that canine and human gliomas are molecularly similar, suggesting that they have a similar mutational, cancer-causing process that would enable similar treatment strategies.
He has collaborated with the Univeristy of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Dr. Beth Boudreau, an assistant professor of neurology at the VMBS, to study a STING agonist medication’s ability to trigger an immune response to tumors such as glioblastomas.
His other research projects have studied MRIs and other diagnostic methods, as well as canine spinal cord injuries that occur naturally.
Levine earned a bachelor’s degree and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from Cornell University. He also completed a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at Colorado State University and a residency in Neurology/Neurosurgery at Texas A&M and the University of Missouri. He joined the VMBS faculty in 2005.
He is a member of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine and served as president of the AAVC from 2021-2022.
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Contact Information: Jennifer Gauntt, Director of VMBS Communications, Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, jgauntt@cvm.tamu.edu, 979-862-4216
