Jack Levin, MD University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco

Dr. Levin has been a member of the faculty of the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco since 1982. Previously, he was Professor of Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Univ. School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. Dr. Levin is the author or co-author of over 250 original research publications, reviews, and book chapters. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Endotoxin Research from 1998 to 2004. His studies of blood coagulation in Limulus, the horseshoe crab, performed at the Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole, MA), identified the key role of amebocytes, the only type of circulating blood cell in the horseshoe crab, in blood coagulation. His recognition of the sensitivity of amebocytes and subsequently of lysates prepared from washed amebocytes to bacterial endotoxins led to his original description of the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate Test for the detection of bacterial endotoxins in 1964.  His studies of the biological effects of bacterial endotoxins and utilization of the Limulus Test for detection of endotoxin in the blood of patients with various clinical disorders led to his receiving the Bang Award for research in bacterial endotoxins and to election as an honorary life member of the International Endotoxin and Innate Immunity Society. In 2014, Dr. Levin received a special award from the Parenteral Drug Association in recognition of the 50^th anniversary of his initial description of the Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) Test.