Richard Pestell

Richard G. Pestell is an Australian American oncologist, endocrinologist and research scientist. Pestell was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to medicine and medical education in 2019 by Queen Elizabeth II. He was previously Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University and Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University. As a serial entrepreneur he founded six biotechnology companies developing cancer therapy and diagnostics. He is currently Distinguished Professor, Translational Medical Research, and the President of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute.

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) in 1989. He received a Ph.D. in 1991 and M.D. in 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. 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.

Career
Pestell was recruited as an Assistant Professor to 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. 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. During this tenure, he also served as Associate Vice President of the Georgetown University Medical Center, at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. Pestell led the effort for renewal of the National Cancer Institute designation, and supported Dr. Mandelblatt in founding the Capital Breast Care Center with Andrea Jung of the Avon Foundation. In 2003, he was also named President of the US branch of the International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research.

From 2005 to 2015, Pestell was Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Executive Vice President of Thomas Jefferson University. During his tenure the US News Ranking for the Oncology programs improved from #65 to #17. Pestell expanded the Center to consortium Cancer Center status and led the successful renewals of the National Cancer Institute designation for 10 years. He expanded the Cancer Center network from 13 to 32 sites and founded several centers and international collaborative agreements (Italy, China, Russia, Hungary, Australia)". He was the Founding Director for the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. He was called to give testimony to the Committee on Appropriations for the United States Senate in 2009.

Since 2017 Pestell has served as President, Pennsylvania Cancer Center and Regenerative Medicine Center, and Blumberg Distinguished Professor, Translational Medical Research, Baruch S Blumberg Institute. In January 2019, Pestell was named Vice Chairman of the Board of the CytoDyn, Inc., which acquired his prior company, ProstaGene, in November 2018. As the Chief Medical Officer, he established the company's cancer clinical trial for the use of a CCR5 inhibitor (leronlimab) and FDA fast track designation in May 2019. He exited CytoDyn in July 2019 and is currently member of the Wistar Institute Cancer Center Philadelphia and Blumberg Distinguished Professor.

Research
Pestell's work has more than 96,500 citations and an H-index of 157, i10 index 483. He is ranked in the world by Google Scholar for his areas of research including: cell cycle (#1), prostate cancer, Oncology and Breast cancer.

Pestell's research has included contributions to understanding of cancer onset and progression including breast and prostate cancer. Pestell showed that nuclear receptors (estrogen, androgen and PPARγ) 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.

In the cell cycle field, Pestell's research has shown the discovery that cyclins are direct transcriptional targets of oncogenic and tumour suppressor signals. He showed that cyclin expression is rate-limiting for oncogene-induced breast tumor growth in vivo. His research served as the preclinical reference citation in the IND (investigational new drug) application to the FDA for the initial clinical research programs (palbocicilib, NCT02947685), for what is now the standard of care for the treatment of breast cancer subsets. 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.

Pestell defined key target genes required for breast cancer stem cell expansion in vivo including p21Cip1, c-Jun, the canonical NF-κB pathway, the cell fate determination pathway protein DACH1, and CCR5.

Pestell discovered CCR5 governs cancer metastasis in both breast and prostate cancer providing the potential for therapeutic targeting with issued patents in this domain. Pestell incorporated these patents into a biotechnology company he had founded (ProstaGene), that was subsequently acquired by CytoDyn. Pestell subsequently initiated the company's currently active cancer treatment clinical trial initiatives targeting CCR5 receiving fast track designation in May 2019.

Pestell is the founder of four biotechnology companies and holds patents in the areas of cancer diagnostics, therapeutics and technologies.

Awards and honours

 * 1975-1981 University Commonwealth Scholarship
 * 1976 St George’s College Prize for first place overall Medical School, University of Western Australia
 * 1988-1991 National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC), Postgraduate Scholarship
 * 1988-1991 Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), Postgraduate Scholarship
 * 1990 The Royal Australian College of Physicians, Winthrop Fellowship (1 award given in Australia)
 * 1991-1994 Neil Hamilton Fairley NHMRC, Postdoctoral Fellowship
 * 1997 NIH Shannon Award
 * 1998 - 2002 Irma T. Hirschl Weil Caulier Career Scientist Award
 * 2000 Elected Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation
 * 2002 Diane Belfer Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research
 * 2002 Francis L. and Charlotte Gragnani Endowed Chair, professor with tenure, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
 * 2005 Australia Endocrine Society, Keith Harrison Memorial Lecture Prize
 * 2007 Elected Fellow, Royal Society of Medicine
 * 2008 Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Western Australia
 * 2009 Elected Fellow, College of Physicians of Philadelphia
 * 2009 Elected Honorary Fellow, American College of Physicians
 * 2010 RD Wright Medallion, University of Melbourne
 * 2010 Susan G. Komen for the Cure "Light of Life" Award
 * 2010 Raine Distinguished Professor
 * 2011 Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
 * 2014 Biotechnology Award, 2014 Advance Global Australian Awards
 * 2015 The Eric Sussman Prize Awarded by The Royal Australasian College of Physicians
 * 2016 Doctor of Medical Sciences, Honoris Causa, University of Melbourne Australia
 * 2016 Member, National Academy of Inventors, Thomas Jefferson University Chapter
 * 2016 Jamie Brooke Lieberman Remembrance Award, Susan G. Komen
 * 2019 Order of Australia (AO)
 * 2022 Elected to Fellowship of Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (FRCPI)
 * 2022 Elected to Fellowship of Royal College of Physicians of England (FRCP, London)
 * 2024 Elected Member of the Academia Europaea

Personal life
Pestell is married to Anna Pestell and has three children, Dr Timothy Pestell, MRCVS (London), Elizabeth and Victoria. He is the great-grandson of Albert Green, Minister for Defence under the Scullin Government. son of George Pestell and related to other assorted ancestors.

He was intercollegiate cross country champion, received the HA Craven (best track distance runner), and full blue for athletics (1981) and in 1984, Pestell won the WA State running (5,000 meters track, 10,000 meters road) and walking championships (5,000 m, 20K and 50K).