Richard Pestell


Richard G. Pestell AO, FRACP, FACP, is an Australian oncologist and endocrinologist who is distinguished professor, Translational Medical Research, and the president of the Pennsylvania Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Research Center at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute. He was previously executive vice president of Thomas Jefferson University and director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center of Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, US. Pestell was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for distinguished service to medicine, and to medical education, as a researcher and physician in the fields of endocrinology and oncology.

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 . He received a Ph.D. and M.D. 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.
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. 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. 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. He was the founding director for the Delaware Valley Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. He has been an advocate for innovative research funding including being called to give testimony to the committee on appropriations for the United States Senate in 2009.
In January 2019, Pestell was named vice chairman of CytoDyn, Inc., who acquired his prior company, ProstaGene, in November 2018.
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 63,000 citations and an H-index of 140, i10 index 452. He is ranked by Google Scholar for his areas of research including: cell cycle, 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 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, 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, angiogenesis and nuclear receptor function and hormone signaling in vivo.
Thirdly, 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. Finally, 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 is the founder of two biotechnology companies and holds patents in the areas of cancer diagnostics, therapeutics and technologies.

Awards and honours

Pestell is married to Anna Pestell and has two children. He is the great-grandson of Albert "Texas" Green, MP., Albert Green, Minister for Defence under the Scullin Government.
In 1984 Pestell won the WA State running and walking championships.

Select publications

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