Children’s Hospital Los Angeles investigator Jesse M. Levine is examining immune mechanisms driving rare pediatric neuroinflammatory conditions to build precise diagnostics and therapies, News-Medical reported.
Dr. Levine’s path into medical research stems from her own childhood experience with hospitals. “I had a pacemaker implanted when I was two years old,” she told News-Medical.
“As a kid, I thought it was so cool that someone had an interesting idea and they were able to invent a device that directly impacted my life. I always knew that I wanted to create something or innovate in a way that helped people,” said Dr. Levine.
While in college, she developed an interest in the brain, neurology, and neuroscience. During medical training, she found herself drawn toward neuroimmunology patients who experience complex psychiatric, cognitive, motor, and sensory effects.
“These patients can have psychiatric, cognitive, motor, and sensory effects, but there’s still so much we don’t know about how to diagnose and treat these issues. As someone interested in solving mysteries, I was drawn in and I translated my interest in medical innovation to neuroimmunology,”
she told News-Medical.
Dr. Levine completed an away rotation at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) during medical school, working alongside Jonathan D. Santoro, MD. That experience inspired her return to CHLA, where she now works as an attending physician and investigator in the Neuroimmunology Program within the Neurological Institute.
“I’m interested in the underlying molecular mechanisms of rare pediatric neuroinflammatory diseases,”
Dr. Levine told News-Medical, noting her ultimate objective is creating precise diagnostics and therapeutics through a solid grasp of fundamental immunology and neuro-immune interactions.
Current projects involve developing a multi-omics pipeline to evaluate immune dysregulation pathways in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder. This autoimmune condition targets the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves.
“We have identified a few patients with monogenic causes of their disease and the variants that these patients had implicated a particular immune signaling pathway called type 1 interferon, so I’m looking into that as a component of the pathogenesis of that disease,”
she explained to News-Medical.
Dr. Levine’s long-term research goal utilizes this multi-omics pipeline across a broader range of pediatric neuroinflammatory conditions to guide future clinical treatment decisions. She maintains an active clinical and research schedule as a physician scientist at CHLA.
| Research Focus Area | Target Condition | Key Biological Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Neuroimmunology | Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder | Type 1 interferon signaling pathways |
| Multi-Omics Pipeline | Rare pediatric neuroinflammatory diseases | Immune dysregulation and genetic variants |
