Richard G. Pestell is a physician scientist (oncologist and endocrinologist) and academic leader who currently serves as the President of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center (PCARM) at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute. He has been in executive leadership at USA Universities and Medical Centers since 2002.
Video Richard Pestell
Education and early career
A native of Perth, Western Australia, Pestell attended Christ Church Grammar School on an academic and sporting scholarship. He attended the Medical School of the University of Western Australia, on a Commonwealth Scholarship, receiving his M.B.B.S.. During Medical School, in the summer vacation, he worked in the iron ore mines in the North West of Australia.
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[4]. He was the recipient of both the Neal Hamilton Fairley Fellowship, and the Winthrop Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Physicians. 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 [1][3].
Pestell was recruited as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. For his work with minority medical school education he received awards from the Robert Woods Johnson. He soon 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.[1]
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 http://www.thehoya.com/lombardi-center-names-new-director/. During this tenure, he also served as Associate Vice President of the Georgetown University Medical Center, at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.[2] While serving as Director of the Lombardi Cancer Center, Pestell led the effort for renewal of its National Cancer Institute designation,[3] 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,. The INCTR assists developing countries by supporting research collaboration, education and training in oncology with the aim of increasing survival rates and building infrastructure http://www.inctr.org/
From 2005-2015, he was Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA and Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University. During this time he renewed the NCI designation of the cancer center in 2008 and again in 2013. During his tenure The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center Network was expanded from 13 to 33 participating hospitals and centers, the Cancer Center was expanded to include consortium members of Drexel University and the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research and the US News Rankings improved from less than 60 to 17 in 2014 (U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals2014 guidebook). He launched a broad strategic plan that drove the creation of new departments (Cancer Biology, Medical Oncology, Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine) and centers focused on health disparities http://isley.kcc.tju.edu/disparities/ He established 7 binational inter-university education and research agreements
He was the founding Director for the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, an integrated research organization between comprehensive universities (University of Delaware, Nemours, Thomas Jefferson University, Christiana Care with >$400M annual research funding. http://www.dvicts.org/[5]
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1593959/newly_formed_institute_to_transform_how_research_becomes_patientrelevant_pract
Maps Richard Pestell
Research
His work is highly cited, with more than 55,000 citations and an H-index of 126, i10 index 413 (October, 2017).[8][10][11]. He is top ranked in the world by Google Scholar for his areas of research including: cell cycle (#1), prostate cancer (#1), Oncology (#3) and Breast cancer (#7) https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RYlsfBQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao.
Pestell's research has included contributions to understanding of cancer onset and progression including breast and prostate cancer [8][9].
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 [8].
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 [8][9].
Third, Pestell defined key target genes required for breast cancer stem cell expansion in vivo including p21Cip1, c-Jun, the canonical NF-?B pathway, and the cell fate determination pathway protein DACH1 [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DACH1.
Pestell is the founder of two biotechnology companies (ProstaGene and LightSeed) and holds many patents in the areas of cancer diagnostics, therapeutics and technologies.
Professional Activities
Pestell has been, or is a member of more than 20 advisory or scientific review boards and funding agencies (UK, USA, Australia, Israel, Holland, Czech, Italy, Poland, France), and the advisory board of domestic (7 NCI Cancer Centers), and international research and clinical institutes, (Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Unit (UK), Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry (Russia).
He has been a strong proponent of reducing health care and education disparity, having received awards from the Robert Woods Johnson Minority Medical Education Program, have led the establishment of the Capital Breast Care Center in Washington DC, and the Center to Eliminate Cancer Disparities in Philadelphia.
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-?B 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.
Awards and recognitions
Pestell has been continuously funded initially by the NHMRC and subsequently the NIH since 1991 (principal investigator of P30 program grants, R01s, etc.), and has received >$89M USD in grant funding. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications, over 40 book chapters and reviews, and more than 200 published abstracts. He is a past member of several NIH panels including the review committee for RO1 grants (TCB, REN, BCE) and a reviewer of SPORE programs, program project grants, the review teams of NCI Cancer Centers since 1998 and 18 other funding agencies. He serves or has served as editor or associate editor for 14 journals including Senior Editor of Cancer Research. He has been elected into a number of honorific societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the Association of Academic Professors and the Interurban Clinical Club http://interurbanclinicalclub.org/.
Notes
External links
- Interview with Richard Pestell
Source of article : Wikipedia
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