Michael Levin

Michael Levin received dual B.S. degrees (computer science, biology) at Tufts (1992), followed by a Ph.D. (Harvard University), in which he identified the first genetic pathway that determines the left-right asymmetry of body organs. He did his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School with Mark Mercola, working on the physiological cross-body signals that operated upstream of the asymmetric gene cascade. He started his lab at Forsyth Institute (Harvard Dental School) in 2000, and moved the group to Tufts in 2009. In 2016, he was selected as the founding director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, and is Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor, with an associate appointment at Harvard's Wyss Institute. His lab uses a range of computational and biophysics approaches to understand how cells in work together to create and repair a complex anatomy. His lab developed the first tools to study bioelectric signaling within all body tissues that serves as the medium for anatomical control in embryogenesis and regeneration. Since then they have developed computational models and machine learning tools to discover how electroceutical interventions targeting ion channel function can be used to control growth and form. Applications of their work span birth defects, regenerative medicine, cancer, and synthetic bioengineering.