[1] Beth Levine graduated magna cum laude in 1981 with a bachelor's degree in French studies from Brown University.
While there, she published a study called "Elevated Circulating Levels of Tumor Necrosis Factor in Severe Chronic Heart Failure" with her future husband and cardiologist Dr. Milton Packer.
[3][5] She completed her fellowship in "infectious diseases and the pathogenesis of neurotropic viruses"[2] at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.
[1] She served as a professor of internal medicine and microbiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center up until the time of her death.
She also proved a link between autophagy and viral infections, showing how the herpes simplex virus type-1 expressed a protein that blocked Beclin 1 activity.
[3] These contributions provided a greater understanding of the role of autophagy pathways in diseases like neurodegeneration, inflammatory disorders, and cancers.