Leveraging was coined as the concept of using something to maximum advantage, bring into effective use, or use in a strategic way, especially something that has not been done or was not the norm. Today, the term serves a very useful purpose when used carefully and effectively. There are no words or short phrases that convey the exact sense. Nothing wrong with leveraging a powerful term, I feel.
That said, "leveraging from the knowledge of Y" is incorrect use and defeats the purpose and fails to use the power of the term. Say, instead,
We will be able to investigate X leveraging from the knowledge of Y.
or better still,
We can leverage our knowledge of Y to investigate X.