Profile of SCWIST Honorary member Julia Levy

Two chance encounters inspired a curious, compassionate scientist to develop key drugs that have since helped thousands of people

Julia Levy’s devotion to science began when she was a little girl, collecting tadpoles in her native British Columbia. But her passion for research became personal in 1986, when she was approached by some distraught doctors. Julia, by then an immunologist and microbiologist in Vancouver, is one of the cofounders of biotechnology firm QLT, and had helped develop photodynamic drugs that use light to destroy cancer cells. but one of the drugs was being withdrawn from a breast cancer trial by an American pharmaceutical company.

“One of the doctors said: ‘These women are doing so well and I can’t treat them without the drug,’” reaclls Julia, now 75. “I thought about those poor women and the few options they had. I was furious. i knew we had to do something.”

So Julia and QLT took over the subsidiary company that was making the drug and produced it for the world.

Then, Julia’s mother was diagnosed with age-related degeneration (AMD), a disease that gradually destroys central vision. When Julia happened to meet a Harvard researcher who had had success using QLT’s drugs on animals with eye disease, she embarked on developing a new drug. Visudyne is now used in almost 80 countries to help reduce the risk of AMD vision loss.

The development of both drugs was a combination of good science and luck. “Luck favours the prepared mind,” says Julia, quoting French scientist Louis Pasteur. Now retired, she’s writing a science-fiction novel. And, yes, she still looks for tadpoles.

Homemakers magazine December/January 2010 p. 114