Education and career
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1961, Prendergast graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 with a BA in Biochemistry. He earned an MS in molecular biophysics from Yale University in 1984 and a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University in 1989.After receiving his doctorate, Prendergast continued his research as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at NYU Medical Center.
Prendergast joined the Department of Cancer Research at Merck Research Laboratories as a staff scientist in 1991. In 1993, he returned to academic research at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, first as an assistant professor and later as an associate professor and assistant chair of the Tumor Biology Group. While at Wistar, in 1995, Prendergast was designated a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences.
In 1999, Prendergast left Wistar to become Senior Director of the Cancer Research Group at DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company. After the sale of DuPont Pharmaceuticals to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Prendergast moved his groups at Wistar and DuPont to Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR) in 2002. He was appointed President and CEO of LIMR in 2004,.
Prendergast’s research has contributed to the discovery and study of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in cancer, and more recently to understanding the role of the immune system in cancer progression and treatment. In the field of cancer genetics, his research helped define how genetic alterations lead to cancer development.
His recent work has linked cancer genetics and cancer immunology in new ways and advanced the study of how cancer cells erect barriers against the immune system. Building on these insights, his research team at LIMR pioneered the discovery and development of IDO inhibitors, a new class of experimental oral drugs that degrade immune barriers erected by tumors and empower a patient’s immune system to attack tumors in combination with other therapies. Most recently, this area of work has illuminated new insights into autoimmunity and its treatment.
Prendergast is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications and 80 book chapters, editorials, and monographs. He has edited two books: Molecular Cancer Therapeutics: Strategies for Drug Discovery and Development (2004) and the first and second editions of Cancer Immunotherapy: Immune Suppression and Tumor Growth (2007, 2013). He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Research, the most-cited journal in the field.
His work has been cited over 15,000 times. Prendergast is an inventor on 19 U.S. patents, with additional international patents plus U.S. and international patents pending, and he has served as Founder, Director or Advisor of multiple biotech start-up companies.
Prendergast, G; Ziff, E (1991). "Methylation-sensitive sequence-specific DNA binding by the c-Myc basic region". Science. 251 (4990): 186. Bibcode:1991Sci...251..186P. PMID 1987636. doi:10.1126/science.1987636.
Prendergast, GC; Lawe, D; Ziff, EB (1991). "Association of Myn, the murine homolog of Max, with c-Myc stimulates methylation-sensitive DNA binding and ras cotransformation". Cell. 65 (3): 395. PMID 1840505. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(91)90457-A.
Sakamuro, D; Elliott, KJ; Wechsler-Reya, R; Prendergast, GC (1996). "BIN1 is a novel MYC–interacting protein with features of a tumour suppressor". Nature Genetics. 14 (1): 69–77. PMID 8782822. doi:10.1038/ng0996-69.
Ge, K; Duhadaway, J; Du, W; Herlyn, M; Rodeck, U; Prendergast, GC (1999). "Mechanism for elimination of a tumor suppressor: Aberrant splicing of a brain-specific exon causes loss of function of Bin1 in melanoma". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 96 (17): 9689. Bibcode:1999PNAS...96.9689G. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.17.9689.
Adini, I (2003). "RhoB controls Akt trafficking and stage-specific survival of endothelial cells during vascular development". Genes & Development. 17 (21): 2721. doi:10.1101/gad.1134603.
Muller, AJ; Duhadaway, JB; Donover, PS; Sutanto-Ward, E; Prendergast, GC (2005). "Inhibition of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, an immunoregulatory target of the cancer suppression gene Bin1, potentiates cancer chemotherapy". Nature Medicine. 11 (3): 312. PMID 15711557. doi:10.1038/nm1196.
Metz, R; Duhadaway, JB; Kamasani, U; Laury-Kleintop, L; Muller, AJ; Prendergast, GC (2007). "Novel Tryptophan Catabolic Enzyme IDO2 is the Preferred Biochemical Target of the Antitumor Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Inhibitory Compound D-1-Methyl-Tryptophan". Cancer Research. 67 (15): 7082. PMID 17671174. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-07-1872.
Muller, AJ; Sharma, MD; Chandler, PR; Duhadaway, JB; Everhart, ME; Johnson, BA; Kahler, DJ; Pihkala, J; Soler, AP; Munn, D. H.; Prendergast, GC; Mellor, AL (2008). "Chronic inflammation that facilitates tumor progression creates local immune suppression by inducing indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (44): 17073. Bibcode:2008PNAS..10517073M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0806173105.
Kumar, S; Jaller, D; Patel, B; Lalonde, JM; Duhadaway, JB; Malachowski, WP; Prendergast, GC; Muller, AJ (2008). "Structure Based Development of Phenylimidazole-Derived Inhibitors of Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase". Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 51 (16): 4968. PMID 18665584. doi:10.1021/jm800512z.
Prendergast, GC (2008). "Immune escape as a fundamental trait of cancer: Focus on IDO". Oncogene. 27 (28): 3889–900. PMID 18317452. doi:10.1038/onc.2008.35.
Prendergast, GC; Muller, AJ; Ramalingam, A; Chang, MY (2009). "BAR the door: Cancer suppression by amphiphysin-like genes". BBA – Reviews on Cancer. 1795: 25. doi:10.1016/j.bbcan.2008.09.001.
Prendergast, GC; Metz, R; Muller, AJ (2010). "Towards a Genetic Definition of Cancer-Associated Inflammation". The American Journal of Pathology. 176 (5): 2082. PMID 20228228. doi:10.2353/ajpath.2010.091173.
Smith, C; Chang, MY; Parker, KH; Beury, DW; Duhadaway, JB; Flick, HE; Boulden, J; Sutanto-Ward, E; Soler, AP; Laury-Kleintop, LD; Mandik-Nayak, L; Metz, R; Ostrand-Rosenberg, S; Prendergast, GC; Muller, AJ (2012). "IDO is a Nodal Pathogenic Driver of Lung Cancer and Metastasis Development". Cancer Discovery. 2 (8): 722. PMID 22822050. doi:10.1158/2159-8290.CD-12-0014.
Prendergast, GC (2014). "Immunological thought in the mainstream of cancer research: Past divorce, recent remarriage and elective affinities of the future". OncoImmunology. 1 (6): 793–797. PMC 3489734 . PMID 23162746. doi:10.4161/onci.20909.
Metz, R; Rust, S; Duhadaway, JB; Mautino, MR; Munn, DH; Vahanian, NN; Link, CJ; Prendergast, GC (2014). "IDO inhibits a tryptophan sufficiency signal that stimulates mTOR: A novel IDO effector pathway targeted by D-1-methyl-tryptophan". OncoImmunology. 1 (9): 1460. PMID 23264892. doi:10.4161/onci.21716.
Chang, MY; Boulden, J; Valenzano, MC; Soler, AP; Muller, AJ; Mullin, JM; Prendergast, GC (2012). "Bin1 Attenuation Suppresses Experimental Colitis by Enforcing Intestinal Barrier Function". Digestive Diseases and Sciences. 57 (7): 1813. PMID 22526583. doi:10.1007/s10620-012-2147-y.
Metz, R; Smith, C; Duhadaway, JB; Chandler, P; Baban, B; Merlo, LF; Pigott, E; Keough, MP; Rust, S; Mellor, AL; Mandik-Nayak, L; Muller, AJ; Prendergast, GC (2014). "IDO2 is critical for IDO1-mediated T-cell regulation and exerts a non-redundant function in inflammation". International Immunology. 26 (7): 357. PMID 24402311. doi:10.1093/intimm/dxt073.
Merlo, LF; Pigott, E; Duhadaway, JB; Grabler, S; Metz, R; Prendergast, GC; Mandik-Nayak, L (2014). "IDO2 is a Critical Mediator of Autoantibody Production and Inflammatory Pathogenesis in a Mouse Model of Autoimmune Arthritis". Journal of Immunology. 192 (5): 2082. PMID 24489090. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1303012.
Prendergast, GC; Smith, C; Thomas, S; Mandik-Nayak, L; Laury-Kleintop, L; Metz, R; Muller, AJ (2014). "Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase pathways of pathogenic inflammation and immune escape in cancer". Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy. 63 (7): 721. doi:10.1007/s00262-014-1549-4.
Prendergast, GC; Metz, R; Muller, AJ; Merlo, LMF; Mandik-Nayak, L (2014). "IDO2 in Immunomodulation and Autoimmune Disease". Frontiers in Immunology. 5. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2014.00585.
Malachowski, WP; Winters, M; Duhadaway, JB; Lewis-Ballester, A; Badir, S; Wai, J; Rahman, M; Sheikh, E; Lalonde, JM; Yeh, SR; Prendergast, GC; Muller, AJ (2016). "O-alkylhydroxylamines as rationally-designed mechanism-based inhibitors of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1". European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 108: 564–76. PMC 4724314 . PMID 26717206. doi:10.1016/j.ejmech.2015.12.028.
Thomas, S; Mercado, JM; Duhadaway, J; Diguilio, K; Mullin, JM; Prendergast, GC (2015). "Novel Colitis Immunotherapy Targets Bin1 and Improves Colon Cell Barrier Function". Digestive Diseases and Sciences. 61 (2): 423. PMID 26195312. doi:10.1007/s10620-015-3804-8.
1995 - American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Award
1995 - Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences Award
2003 - Highlighted Project, 2003 DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program Report
2008 - Special Achievement Award, Chinese Society for Clinical Oncology
2008 - Designated One of the 250 Historically Most Influential Alumni of Princeton University
2012 - Inventor of the Year, Thomas Jefferson University Kimmel Cancer Center
2014 - Highlighted 'In the Pipeline' Project, DoD Breast Cancer Research Program Report
2016 - First Designee of the Endowed Havens Chair for Biomedical Research
