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Dr. Anait S. Levenson earned her MD degree from The 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute in 1981 and her PhD from Institute of Tuberculosis in 1988 in Moscow, Russia. She received her post-doctoral training at University of Virginia, Charlottesville and further training at Northwestern University Cancer Center (Breast Cancer Program). After almost a year at the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Research Assistant Professor, Dr. Levenson returned to Northwestern University as Research Faculty, first at the RHL Comprehensive Cancer Center then at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. In July of 2007, Dr. Levenson transferred to the Department of Urology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine as Research Associate Professor. Her laboratory is concentrated on understanding the molecular mechanisms of development and progression of prostate cancer bone metastases. Using new model systems and gene array technology, Dr. Levenson identified “prostate cancer bone metastasis signature.” These are specific sets of genes which can serve as targets for prevention and new therapies for bone metastasis and biomarkers for distinguishing cancers with good prognosis from aggressive tumors at high risk of developing bone metastasis. She is also involved in research aimed at understanding the role of estrogen and estrogen-like molecules in the pathogenesis of prostate cancer and prostate cancer bone metastases. She is particularly interested on the curious on/off switch of reversible appearance of estrogen receptor (ER)β in metastatic prostate cancer, which raises the possibility of using Selective ER modulators (SERMs), ERβ-specific agonists and phytoestrogens (resveratrol) to trigger cytostatic, cytotoxic, apoptotic and antiangiogenic actions in malignant cells. Dr. Levenson has more than 30 publications in highly regarded journals such as Cancer Research, International Journal of Cancer, Cell Growth and Differentiation, British Journal of Cancer and others. Undergraduate: Biophysics, 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute, Moscow, USSR
MD: Medicine, 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute, Moscow, USSR
PhD: Immunology, Institute of Tuberculosis, Moscow, USSR
Post-graduate: Molecular Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
The following publications are selected from a complete CV. For more information on Dr. Levenson's scholarly productivity, please contact her office. 1. Levenson A.S., Catherino W.H., and Jordan V.C. Estrogenic activity is increased for an antiestrogen by a natural mutation of the estrogen receptor. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 60: 261-268, 1997
2. Levenson A.S. and Jordan V.C. MCF-7: The first hormone responsive breast cancer cell line. Perspectives in Cancer Research. Cancer Research 57: 3071-3078, 1997
3. Levenson A.S., Svoboda K.M., Kwaan H.C. and Jordan V.C. Agonist activity of antiestrogen-receptor complexes to regulate urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1) endogenous gene expression in breast cancer cells. Cancer Letters 125: 215-220, 1998
4. Levenson A.S., Wolf D.M., Catherino W.H., Takei H. and Jordan V.C. Understanding the antiestrogenic actions of raloxifene and a mechanism of drug resistance to tamoxifen. Breast Cancer 5: 99-106, 1998
5. Levenson A.S. and Jordan V.C. The key to the antiestrogenic mechanism of raloxifene is amino acid 351 (Asp) in the estrogen receptor. Cancer Research 58: 1872-1875, 1998
6. Levenson A.S., Tonetti D.A. and Jordan V.C. The estrogen-like effect of 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT) on induction of transforming growth factor alpha (TGFa) mRNA in MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells stably expressing the estrogen receptor (ER). British Journal of Cancer 77: 1812-1819, 1998
7. Levenson A.S., Kwaan H.C., Svoboda K.M., Weiss I.M., Sakurai S. and Jordan V.C. Estradiol regulation of components of the plasminogen-plasmin system in MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells stably expressing the estrogen receptor. British Journal of Cancer 78: 88-95, 1998
8. Levenson A.S. and Jordan V.C. Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulation. Millenium Review 2000. European Journal of Cancer 35: 1628-1639, 1999
9. Levenson A.S., MacGregor Schafer J.I., Bentrem D.J., Pease K.M. and Jordan V.C. Control of the estrogen-like actions of the tamoxifen-estrogen receptor complex by the surface amino acid at position 351. Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 76: 61-70, 2001
10. Jordan V.C., MacGregor Schafer J. I., Levenson A.S., Liu H., Pease K.M., Simons L.A. and Zapf J.W. Molecular classification of estrogens. Cancer Research 61: 6619-6623, 2001
11. Levenson A.S., Svoboda K.M., Pease K.M., Kaiser S.A., Chen B., Simons L.A., Jovanovic B.D., P.A. Dyck and Jordan V.C. Gene expression profiles with activation of the ER-SERM complex in breast cancer cells expressing wtER. Cancer Research 62: 4419-4426, 2002
12. Levenson A.S., Kliakhandler I.L., Pease K.M., Svoboda K.M., Kaiser S.A., Ward III J.E. and Jordan V.C. Molecular classification of SERMs on the basis of gene expression profiles of breast cancer cells expressing ER alpha. British Journal of Cancer 87: 449-456, 2002
13. Levenson A.S., Gehm B.D., Timm Pearce S., Horiguchi J., Simons L.A., Ward III JE, Jameson JL and Jordan V.C. Resveratrol acts as an estrogen receptor (ER) agonist in breast cancer cells stably transfected with ERa. International Journal of Cancer. 104: 587-596, 2003 (Cover art, May 1)
14. Satcher R.L., Dvorkin K., Levenson A.S., Vandenbroek T and Stupp S.I. Gene expression in cancer cells is influenced by contact with bone cells in a novel co-culture system that models bone metastasis. Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research. 426: 54-63, 2004
15. Levenson AS, Thurn TE, Simons LA, Veliceasa D, Jarrett J, Osipo C., Jordan VC, Volpert OV, Satcher RL, Gartenhaus RB. Overexpression of MCT1 oncogene contributes to increased in vivo tumorigenicity of MCF7 cells by promotion of angiogenesis and inhibition of apoptosis. Cancer Research. 65: 10651-6, 2005
16. Wang J, Levenson AS, Satcher RL. The importance of physical contact between prostate cancer cells and bone marrow stromal cells for mediating bone metastasis formation. International Journal of Molecular Medicine. 17: 849-56, 2006
17. Wang J, Jarrett J, Huang C-C, Satcher RL, Levenson AS. Identification of estrogen-regulated metastasis-associated genes involved in breast cancer bone metastases to the bone. Clinical & Experimental Metastasis. 24: 411-22, 2007 Book Chapters: 1. O’Regan R.M., Levenson A.S., England G.M., Yao K. A., Muenzner H.D., Takei H and Jordan V.C. Drug resistance to antiestrogens. In: Hormone Therapy in Breast and Prostate Cancer. Jordan V.C. and Furr B.J.A. (eds.). Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey, pp 47- 68, 2002
2. Levenson A.S. and Jordan V.C. Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulation. In: Breast Cancer: Prognosis-Treatment-Prevention. Pasqualini J.R. (ed) Marcel Dekker, Inc., pp 271-285, 2002
3. Gehm B.D. and Levenson A.S. Resveratrol as a phytoestrogen. In: Resveratrol in Health and Disease. Aggarwal BB and Shishodia S (eds) Marcel Dekker, Inc. pp 439-464, 2005
Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine
Department of Urology
303 East Chicago Avenue, Tarry 16-703
Chicago, IL 60611-3008
(312) 908-2002
Fax (312) 908-7275
a-levenson@northwestern.edu Sharon Stafford
Administrative Assistant
(312) 908-8600
s-stafford@northwestern.edu
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