Brandon Levy

Brandon Levy is a Health Communications Specialist for the NIH’s Intramural Research Program, where he works to increase the IRP’s public profile and ensure IRP scientists get the recognition they deserve. He particularly enjoys writing about the cutting-edge research performed at NIH but also produces videos and content for social media. Before joining the IRP, he worked as a science writer in NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and as a postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) fellow in NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), spending his days putting people inside giant magnets and sending magnetic waves into their brains to shed light on the mysteries of learning and memory. When he’s not hunched over a computer keyboard, Brandon enjoys singing in his acapella group, reading, honing his skills as an amateur chef, and over-obsessing about college basketball.

Posts By This Author

Experimental Antibody Tightens Up Leaky Blood Vessels

Treatment Could Benefit Patients With a Variety of Illnesses

blood vessels

Our blood is a miraculous mix of cells and critical fluids that keep our organs running and fight off dangerous infections. Of course, for blood to do its job, it has to stay in our veins and arteries, which is easier said than done for people with certain illnesses. Fortunately, a recent IRP study has demonstrated the promise of a potential new treatment for people with dangerously leaky blood vessels.

Several life-threatening conditions, including Ebola and sepsis due to an uncontrolled infection, cause the fluid component of blood to leak out of blood vessels. IRP senior investigator Kirk Druey, M.D., however, came to study the phenomenon through a very rare ailment called Clarkson disease, which causes patients to periodically experience ‘flares’ or ‘episodes’ when their veins and arteries suddenly and inexplicably start leaking.

IRP Graduate Students Show Off Their Work at Annual Symposium

Event Highlights Efforts of Early-Career Researchers

IRP graduate student Kenya Debarros poses with her scientific poster

The IRP’s reputation as a leader in biomedical research attracts scientists in all stages of their careers and from all corners of the U.S. and the world. Once a year, the motley collection of graduate students who are completing their Ph.D. research in NIH labs gets to tout its scientific accomplishments at NIH’s Graduate Student Research Symposium, which took place this year on February 15.

During the event’s two poster sessions, more than 120 IRP graduate students presented the results of their research so far, from the development of better ways to grow retina-like collections of cells in the lab to insights into how the brain regulates feelings of hunger. Read on for a brief look at a few of the IRP’s brilliant budding scientists and the discoveries they showed off at the event.

Alternative Therapy Relieves Immunotherapy’s Neurological Consequences

Case Studies Highlight New Way to Treat Common Side Effect

child with cancer

New medical treatments nearly always come packaged with new side effects. CAR-T cell therapy, a game-changing ‘immunotherapy’ for cancer, is no exception. However, a set of case studies reported by IRP researchers could help physicians better contend with one of the therapy’s most worrisome complications.

CAR-T cell therapy involves collecting immune cells called T cells from a patient's blood, genetically modifying them to turn them into cancer killers, growing millions of the modified cells in the lab, and then returning the cancer-seeking missiles to the patient’s body. As promising as the approach is for eliminating cancer, the first CAR-T cell therapy was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only a bit more than six years ago, so clinicians are still figuring out the best ways to manage its less desirable effects.

Brain Pathway Amplifies Pain After Injury

Mouse Study Could Aid Development of Treatments for Chronic Pain

patient with shoulder injury talks with doctor

Getting hurt or sick is bad enough, but millions of patients around the world continue to experience pain or hypersensitivity even after their ailment resolves itself. Despite the prevalence of chronic pain, few effective treatments are available, especially ones without the potential for addiction that opioid medications carry. However, new IRP research has shown that suppressing the electrical firing of neurons in a certain brain area can alleviate injury-induced hypersensitivity in mice, providing a promising new target for treatments aimed at relieving chronic pain.

Synthetic Materials Influence Body’s Healing Response

Research Could Lead to New Strategies for Treating Injuries

doctor examining knee after surgery

Modern medical advances mean that many people are not “only flesh and blood.” Mechanical devices and substances created in medical labs are commonly replacing or being added to parts of people’s bodies. A new IRP study has shed light on how some of those materials might influence the body’s healing process, providing insights that could eventually spur the creation of new ones that influence the behavior of the body’s immune system and allow doctors to better direct how the body repairs itself.

A History of NIH in 12 Objects

Lecture Explains Trinkets’ Links to Important Milestones

watch fob

The history of NIH and its precursor institution, the Hygienic Laboratory, stretches back nearly 140 years — way longer than any human being has ever lived. Even when those who have witnessed history are still around, the fading of memories threatens to erase our knowledge of the past. Fortunately, with proper storage and care, objects like those in the collections of the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum can last hundreds of years, providing enduring reminders of important historical milestones.

On December 11, Stetten Museum curator Michele Lyons used a dozen such objects to describe the evolution of NIH from its origins to the modern day. Her presentation touched on topics ranging from NIH’s founding in New York to its key role in creating national standards for heart valve replacement surgery to the American AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

Gene Therapy Protects Neurons From Alzheimer’s Disease

New Approach Preserves Cognitive Abilities in Pre-Symptomatic Mice

diagram showing a virus entering a cell and delivering a gene into its nucleus

Cooks preparing traditional holiday feasts will surely find that a fire extinguisher can effectively quench an oven inferno, but it would probably be better if the oven never caught fire in the first place. Similarly, Alzheimer’s researchers have focused much more on putting out the biological fires scorching patients’ brains than on making brain cells ‘fireproof.’ A new IRP study in mice, however, suggests better results might be achieved with an approach specifically designed to make patients’ neurons more resilient.

Antibody Assault Shows Promise Against Dormant HIV

Treatment Strategy Could Mop Up Virus Hiding in Patients’ Bodies

antibodies attacking a virus

As temperatures drop in the fall, a variety of species from groundhogs to bears prepare to wait out the winter in their dens. Much like these animals, HIV also goes into hibernation when conditions are tough, a trait that has long stymied efforts to develop a cure. However, IRP researchers recently tested a promising strategy that might one day be used to flush out and kill dormant remnants of HIV.

New Lasker Scholars Are Coming for Cancer

IRP Program Supports Cutting-Edge Cancer Research

Dr. Rosa Nguyen

The cumulative years of experience among the IRP’s large cadre of cancer researchers is truly astounding, with numerous scientists having spent half a century or more studying the disease at NIH. As incredibly valuable as their hard-earned wisdom is to finding new treatments for cancer, any scientific field also benefits tremendously from a constant influx of young talent. That’s where the IRP’s Lasker Clinical Research Scholars Program comes in.

The Lasker program identifies extremely promising early-career physician-scientists in a wide variety of fields and provides them with funding and resources to start their own independent labs at NIH. Over the past year, purely by coincidence, all of the Lasker Scholars selected happen to specialize in the study and treatment of cancer. Read on to learn more about the new ideas and bounding enthusiasm these fresh faces are bringing to NIH’s fight against the disease.

Suppressing Neurons Curbs Withdrawal-Induced Pain Hypersensitivity

Insights From Mouse Study Could Aid Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder

man with neck pain

A headache or stubbed toe is annoying enough as it is, but for people in recovery from opioid use disorder, everyday aches and pains — and even sensations that would ordinarily not be painful at all — can be amped up to the point that they become quite distressing. A new IRP mouse study has helped scientists home in on the specific brain cells that might cause this phenomenon, providing a first step towards an intervention that could make it easier for people to stop using addictive opioid medications or illegal drugs like heroin.

This page was last updated on Wednesday, March 15, 2023