Ofer Levy

Dr. Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, is a board-certified pediatric infectious disease specialist and physician-scientist focused on developing next-generation vaccines for vulnerable populations. Levy serves as principal investigator, staff physician, and director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children's Hospital, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and Yale College with a Bachelor of Science in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and earned his MD and PhD degrees from New York University. Levy completed his pediatric residency and fellowship in infectious diseases at Boston Children's Hospital.

The Precision Vaccines Program applies precision medicine principles to vaccinology, conducting basic and translational research to develop vaccines and therapeutics for diseases affecting infants, older adults, individuals with chronic disease, and those who are immunocompromised. Levy and his colleagues have developed blood-based systems to study human immunity outside the body, leading to discoveries about how the immune system changes with age and the need for vaccines optimized for specific high-risk populations.

Levy leads or co-leads multiple NIH/NIAID-supported studies, including adjuvant discovery and development program contracts that use high-throughput screening to identify novel small molecule adjuvants. He also oversees systems biology projects through the Human Immunology Project Consortium and the Immune Development in Early Life program, aiming to define biomarkers of vaccine responsiveness, respiratory infection, and asthma. His research includes the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, influenza, HIV, RSV, pertussis, and an opioid vaccine targeting fentanyl overdose. As co-founder of Ovax, Inc., Levy contributes to efforts addressing the opioid epidemic with anti-fentanyl overdose vaccines. The Precision Vaccines Program, funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, also uses systems biology to study vaccine safety.

Levy has been nominated for the Best Academic Vaccinology Program by the World Vaccine Congress and serves on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee, where he influences vaccine policy and practice. He participated in the Emergency Use Authorization and approval of COVID vaccines.

With more than 200 publications and a Google Scholar H-index of 74, Levy is board certified in pediatric infectious diseases by the American Board of Pediatrics and is active in professional organizations such as the Pediatric Infectious Disease Society, the American Society of Microbiology, the Infectious Disease Society of America, the American Association of Immunologists, and the Society for Pediatric Research. Levy has delivered two TEDx talks and has appeared in major media outlets including BBC, CNN, Fox News, NBC Nightly News, National Geographic, The New York Times, Scientific American, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.