Sidney Pestka, MD Dr. Sidney Pestka Received His Undergraduate Degree
Sidney Pestka, MD
Dr. Sidney Pestka received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Princeton University in 1957 and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1961. After completing a pediatric and medical internship at Baltimore City Hospitals, in 1962 he took a position in the laboratory of Dr. Marshall W. Nirenberg at the National Heart Institute, where he was part of the team working on research involving the genetic code, protein synthesis and ribosome function that led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine received by Dr. Nirenberg.
While in the Nirenberg Laboratory, Dr. Pestka discovered how the genetic code of the mRNA is translated into protein through the small ribosomal subunit, a surprising discovery that was contrary to the scientific thinking at that time. This early work helped create new fundamental tenets about the mechanism of protein biosynthesis and antibiotic action.
In 1966, Dr. Pestka moved to the National Cancer Institute, where for three years he continued his research on protein synthesis and began investigations in other areas. In 1969, he joined the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, New Jersey, where he initiated the work on interferon.
Dr. Pestka's breakthroughs have made an enormous impact on the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and on the development of new biotherapeutics for medicine. His work is the basis of a number of U.S. and more than 100 foreign patents. Interferon is a major product of several U.S. companies and foreign companies almost all of which license interferon under Dr. Pestka's patents, including Schering-Plough, Hoffmann-La Roche, Amgen, Biogen and Berlex.
In recognition of his work, Dr. Pestka was awarded the nations highest honor for technological achievement, The National Medal of Technology, by President Bush at a White House ceremony in June 2002. Dr. Pestka was cited for his "pioneering achievements that led to the development of the biotechnology industry, to the first recombinant interferons for the treatment of cancers, leukemias, viral diseases such as hepatitis B and C, and multiple sclerosis; to fundamental technologies leading to other biotherapeutics; and for basic scientific discoveries in chemistry, biochemistry, genetic engineering and molecular biology from protein biosynthesis to receptors and cell signaling."
Dr. Pestka was inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993, and has received many awards for his research including the National Medal of Technology in 2002, the Warren Alpert Prize from Harvard in 2004, the Selman Waksman Award in Microbiology and the Milstein Award from the International Society for Interferon and Cyokine Research. He has published over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals; edited five books, three of which are classic reference books about interferons in the Methods of Enzymology series. His work with IFN-a has led to cancer therapy with interferons and the use of interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C preventing development of liver cancer due to hepatitis. IFN-a is approved for treatment of a number of cancers and is the only approved treatment for advanced melanoma. His developments related to IFN-b led to its use for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Pestka has been Chairman of the Board and Chief Scientific Officer of PBL Biomedical laboratories since 1990; and has been professor and chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology and Immunology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway since 1986.