Sidney Pestka ’57

Sid died Dec. 22, 2016, surrounded by family. The quintessential scientist since adolescence, he was afflicted with dementia.

While at Princeton he played intramural hockey and was a laboratory assistant. His senior-year roommates were Leslie Blatt, Norman Strax, and Phil Smith. He joined Prospect Club and graduated summa cum laude in chemistry.

He earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Afterward, he worked at the National Institutes of Health in Marshall W. Nirenberg’s laboratory. Sid’s early work on the genetic code, protein synthesis, and ribosome function contributed to Nirenberg’s 1968 Nobel Prize.

In 1969, Sid left the NIH for the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology, where he focused on defining how antibiotics worked and proteins are synthesized and later on, interferons. There he was the first person to purify interferon alpha and beta, the first to clone mature interferons, and the first to develop a commercialized recombinant biotherapeutic, Roferon-A.

Sid was emeritus professor of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers, which he joined in 1986, and served as chairman for 25 years. In 1990, he founded PBL Assay Science to develop cytokine assays and reagents and to expand interferon’s clinical utility in cancer and viral diseases.

Sid was a warm, caring, good-humored man. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Joan; sister Doris Goldman; children Steven, Sharon, and Robert ’88; their spouses Caroline, Ned, and Kazumi; and nine grandchildren, Hannah, Eleanor, Leela, Maya, Beatrice, Ashenafi, Robin, Sabina, and Harry. Contributions in his name should be made to the Classmate Fund.