Pitt Medical School leader transitions to research

A physician who led the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine to national prominence in research circles announced Wednesday he is stepping aside from his post as senior vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine.

Pitt officials said Dr. Arthur S. Levine, who came to Pitt in 1998, plans to open a new laboratory for Alzheimer’s disease research at Pitt’s Brain Institute, but will remain on as dean and vice chancellor until a successor is named.

Levine’s announcement triggered the launch of a national search for a successor and accolades from those he has worked with at Pitt.

“It’s difficult to overstate the remarkable impact that Art has had on the University of Pittsburgh, our School of Medicine, our health sciences programs, and UPMC. His commitment to research and academic excellence is unparalleled and has fueled our university’s unprecedented rise as a leader in leveraging knowledge for society’s gain,” Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said.

Levine, 82, beefed up the medical school’s recruitment efforts as well as its curriculum and put his imprint on education there through a long list of initiatives.

Pitt officials said his efforts led to the establishment of the nation’s first Department of Critical Care Medicine in 2002, a new Department of Immunology in the same year, the Department of Computational and Systems Biology in 2004, the Department of Structural Biology in 2005, the Department of Biomedical Informatics in 2006 and the Department of Developmental Biology in 2009.

He established the Drug Discovery Institute in 2005, the Center for Vaccine Research two years later, the Center for Military Medicine Research in 2012, the Institute for Precision Medicine in 2013 and the Brain Institute in 2014.

Levine also played a key role in the medical school’s emergence on a world stage, as Pitt developed close relationships with medical schools in China and Kazakhstan.

Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@tribweb.com or via Twitter @deberdley_trib.