Dr. Gary Levy
MD, FRCP (C)
Director of Transplantation Institute at University of Toronto

Dr. Levy graduated from medical school at the University of Toronto in 1973.  He completed his training in hepatology at the University of Toronto in 1978 and undertook postdoctoral training in immunology at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation from 1978-81.  He returned to the University of Toronto in 1981.  In 1983 he received the William Goldie Price in Medicine.  In 1988 he was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation.  Dr. Levy founded and became the Medical Director of the Liver Transplant Unit at the Toronto General Hospital and University of Toronto in 1987.  In 1990, he organized and co-founded their Multi Organ Transplant Unit. He has been the Director of the Multi Organ Transplant Program at the University Health Network since 1990. In 1997, Dr. Levy was the co-founder of Trillium Therapeutics, a biotechnology company and served as the Chief Scientific Officer until 2002.    In 2001 he became an Honorary Professor at Wuhan University in the People’s Republic of China and in 2002 received the Canadian Liver Foundation Commemorative Medal for the Queen’s Jubilee for his outstanding contribution to the study of liver disease.  In 2006 he received the Ivan T. Beck Lectureship from the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG).  He served as the President of the CAG from 1997-98.  In 2010 he received the Dr. Richard Hunt Outstanding Service Award from the Canadian Digestive Health Foundation of which he served as the President from 2000-06.    In 2010 he also received the Williams Calne Lectureship for his outstanding contribution to the study of liver disease from the British Association for the Study of the Liver.  In January 2011 he became a Fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association.

He is currently a Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Toronto and Director of the Multi Organ Transplant Program at the University Health Network and University of Toronto and in July 2008 he was appointed as the first Director of the newly formed University of Toronto Transplantation Institute.  In September 2008 he founded Veritas Therapeutics Inc. and currently serves as the President and CEO.

He has organized and served as Director of a research group of 11 principle investigators which is focused on studying cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation.  His interest primarily is on finding a way to achieve immunological tolerance that can help patients who are in need of an organ transplant.  His research has continuously been funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research for over 30 years, the National Institutes of Health and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and has focused on immune-mediated mechanisms of organ injury due to viruses, alloantigens, and xenoantigens.  He is the Director of the CIHR Training Program in Regenerative Medicine and was awarded 20 million dollars from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to build research capacity for studies on immune tolerance.  He has published over 350 original articles, books and book chapters.  He currently holds the Novartis Chair in Transplantation at the University of Toronto.  From 2007-08 he served on the University of Toronto Medical Journal Faculty Advisory Board.

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