معرفی
Lonny Levin is a Professor of Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical College, part of Weill Cornell Medicine. He has been a faculty member since 1994 and has held his current position since 2009. His research primarily focuses on the second messenger molecule cAMP and the bicarbonate-regulated Soluble Adenylyl Cyclase (sAC), with particular emphasis on developing sAC inhibitors as on-demand male contraceptives.
Dr. Levin earned his B.S. from Cornell University in 1983 and his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1989. He completed his post-doctoral training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a Howard Hughes Fellow, where he cloned and characterized the Rutabaga adenylyl cyclase integral for learning and memory formation in Drosophila melanogaster.
His research interests center on cAMP signaling pathways, particularly the bicarbonate-regulated Soluble Adenylyl Cyclase (sAC). His lab studies how sAC functions as a carbon dioxide/bicarbonate/pH sensor throughout evolution, with special focus on its role in sperm physiology and as a target for non-hormonal male contraception. His work demonstrates that sAC is most abundantly expressed in male germ cells and mediates bicarbonate-induced, cAMP-dependent processes required for sperm to fertilize an egg.
Analysis of Dr. Levin's recent publications (2022-2025) reveals a strong focus on developing sAC inhibitors as on-demand male contraceptives, with significant attention to the biochemical mechanisms of sAC activation and inhibition. His work spans multiple disciplines including reproductive biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and drug discovery. The publications show progression from basic research on sAC function to translational work developing contraceptive applications, with several high-impact publications in Nature Communications and other prestigious journals.
- $650,000 Male Contraceptive Initiative grant (2023)
- $290,875 Male Contraceptive Initiative grant (2022)
- National Institute of Child Health & Human Development grants for on-demand male contraception research
Dr. Levin leads an active research program with significant grant funding, including NIH grants for "On-demand nonhormonal male contraception via ADCY10 inhibition" (2023-2026) and "Optimization of lead candidates for an on-demand male contraceptive" (2023-2028). He maintains a productive collaboration with Dr. Jochen Buck, with whom he co-directs the Levin-Buck Lab. His laboratory utilizes sAC knockout and inducible knockout mouse models, cell-lines, antibodies, and multiple selective pharmacologic inhibitors developed in the lab. The lab's current work is divided into two broad categories: discovery of sAC physiologic functions and drug discovery efforts focused on male contraception.
