Richard Pestell

Richard G. Pestell
Born	Perth, Western Australia
Residence	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Citizenship	United States, Australia
Alma mater	New York University (MBA) Massachusetts General Hospital (Postdoctoral Clinical and Research Fellow in Medicine) Harvard Medical School (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Medicine) University of Melbourne (M.D., Ph.D.) University of Western Australia (M.B.B.S.)
Spouse(s)	Anna Pestell
Children	2
Awards	Eric Sussman Prize (2015) Biotechnology Award, Advance Global Australian Awards (2014) RD Wright Medallion, University of Melbourne (2010) Susan G. Komen for the Cure "Light of Life" Award (2010)
Scientific career
Fields	Oncology, Endocrinology
Institutions	Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University (Current) Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center Albert Einstein Cancer Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Richard G. Pestell FRACP, FACP, is an Australian physician scientist (oncologist and endocrinologist), former Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia USA. He is Distinguished Professor, Translational Medical Research, and the President of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute.^[1] He has been in executive leadership at USA Universities and Medical Centers since 2002.

Personal

He is married to Anna Pestell and has two children.

Education and early career

A native of Perth, Western Australia, Pestell attended Christ Church Grammar School. He attended the University of Western Australia School of Medicine, receiving his M.B.B.S..

He conducted clinical training in Internal Medicine, Oncology and Endocrinology. He was awarded the Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians (FRACP) (1989). He received a Ph.D. (1991) and M.D. (1997) from the University of Melbourne. He was the recipient of both the Neal Hamilton Fairley Fellowship, and the Winthrop Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians.^[2] He became a Postdoctoral Clinical and Research Fellow in Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1991.

Pestell was recruited as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. He became an Associate Professor, and Professor, in the Departments of Medicine and Developmental and Molecular Biology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, New York. Pestell served as Chair of the Division of Endocrine-Dependent Tumor Biology at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center.

In 2002 Pestell was named Director of the Lombardi Cancer Center, the Francis L. and Charlotte Gragnani Endowed Chair, and Chairman of the Department of Oncology at the Georgetown University Medical Center.^[3] During this tenure, he also served as Associate Vice President of the Georgetown University Medical Center, at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.While serving as Director of the Lombardi Cancer Center, Pestell led the effort for renewal of its National Cancer Institute designation, and founded the Capital Breast Care Center with Andrea Jung of the Avon Foundation.^[4]

In 2003 he was also named President of the USA branch of the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research.

From 2005-2015, Pestell was Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA and Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University. He was the founding Director for the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science.

Dr. Pestell with First Lady Laura Bush, Andrea Jung, and Kathleen Walas of Avon Products, Inc.

Research

Pestell's work has more than 56,000 citations and an H-index of 128, i10 index 413 (http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/58) (October, 2017). He is top ranked by Google Scholar for his areas of research including: cell cycle (#1), prostate cancer (#1), Oncology (#6) and Breast cancer (#7).^[5]

Pestell's research has included contributions to understanding of cancer onset and progression including breast and prostate cancer.^[6]

First, Pestell showed that nuclear receptors (estrogen and androgen) are acetylated, and that this event is rate-limiting in hormone signaling and growth control- thus identifying a new target for cancer therapy. His laboratory demonstrated this was a general mechanism conserved among nuclear receptors that affect diverse biological processes.

Second, in the cell cycle field, his research has shown the discovery that cyclins are direct transcriptional targets of oncogenic and tumor suppressor signals. He showed that cyclin expression is rate-limiting for oncogene-induced breast tumor growth in vivo. He has been a pioneer of the non-canonical functions of cyclins and was the first to show that cyclins regulate diverse function including miRNA biogenesis, cellular migration, mitochondrial metabolism (the Warburg effect), angiogenesis and nuclear receptor function and hormone signaling in vivo.

Third, Pestell defined key target genes required for breast cancer stem cell expansion in vivo including p21Cip1, c-Jun, the canonical NF-κB pathway, and the cell fate determination pathway protein DACH1.

Pestell is the founder of two biotechnology companies (ProstaGene and LightSeed) and holds patents in the areas of cancer diagnostics, therapeutics and technologies.^[7]

Awards and honours

• 1998 - 2002 Irma T. Hirschl Weil Caulier Career Scientist Award^[8]
• 2000 Elected Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation^[9]
• 2002 Diane Belfer Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research^[10]
• 2007 Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Medicine^[11]
• 2008 Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Western Australia^[12]
• 2009 Elected Fellow, College of Physicians of Philadelphia^[13]
• 2009 Elected Honorary Fellow, American College of Physicians^[11]
• 2010 RD Wright Medallion, University of Melbourne^[11]
• 2010 Susan G. Komen for the Cure "Light of Life" Award^[11]
• 2010 Raine Distinguished Professor^[11]
• 2011 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science^[14]
• 2014 Biotechnology Award, 2014 Advance Global Australian Awards^[15]
• 2015 The Eric Susman Prize, Awarded by The Royal Australasian College of Physicians^[16]

Select publications

• Fan, S.; Wang, J.; Yuan, R.; Ma, Y.; Meng, Q.; Erdos, M.R.; Pestell, R.G.; Yuan, F.; Auborn, K.J.; Goldberg, I.D.; Rosen, E.M. (1999). "BRCA1 inhibition of estrogen receptor signaling in transfected cells". Science. 284 (5418): 1354–6. doi:10.1126/science.284.5418.1354.
• Bromberg, J.F.; Wrzeszczynska, M.H.; Devgan, G.; Zhao, Y.; Pestell, R.G.; Albanese, C.; Darnell, J.E.; Jr (1999). "Stat3 as an oncogene". Cell. 98 (3): 295–303. doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)81959-5.
• Tazebay, U.H.; Wapnir, I.L.; Levy, O.; Dohan, O.; Zuckier, L.S.; Zhao, Q.H.; Deng, H.F.; Amenta, P.S.; Fineberg, S.; Pestell, R.G.; Carrasco, N. (2000). "The mammary gland iodide transporter is expressed during lactation and in breast cancer". Nat Med. 6 (8): 871–8. doi:10.1038/78630.
• Tanaka, H.; Matsumura, I.; Ezoe, S.; Satoh, Y.; Sakamaki, T.; Albanese, C.; Machii, T.; Pestell, R.G.; Kanakura, Y. (2002). "E2F1 and c-Myc potentiate apoptosis through inhibition of NF-κB activity that facilitates MnSOD-mediated ROS elimination". Mol Cell. 9 (5): 1017–29. doi:10.1016/s1097-2765(02)00522-1.
• Huang, E.; Ishida, S.; Pittman, J.; Dressman, H.; Bild, A.; Kloos, M.; D'Amico, M.; Pestell, R.G.; West, M.; Nevins, J.R. (2003). "Gene expression phenotypic models that predict the activity of oncogenic pathways". Nat Genet. 34 (2): 226–30. doi:10.1038/ng1167.
• Genander, M.; Halford, M.M.; Xu, N.J.; Eriksson, M.; Yu, Z.; Qiu, Z.; Martling, A.; Greicius, G.; Thakar, S.; Catchpole, T.; Chumley, M.J.; Zdunek, S.; Wang, C.; Holm, T.; Goff, S.P.; Pettersson, S.; Pestell, R.G.; Henkemeyer, M.; Frisen, J. (2009). "Dissociation of EphB2 signaling pathways mediating progenitor cell proliferation and tumor suppression". Cell. 139 (4): 679–92. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2009.08.048.

References

External links

• Interview with Richard Pestell