David Sachs graduated summa cum laude in organic chemistry from Harvard College in 1963, and pursued a master's degree equivalent at the University of Paris on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1964.
From 1970 to 1972 Sachs fulfilled his military service working in Christian Anfinsen's laboratory at the National Institutes of Health.
He remained in Bethesda and joined the National Cancer Institute, where his research led to the discovery of class II MHC in 1973.
[1] In 1991 Sachs returned to Boston, where he was appointed Professor of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Based on these observations, Sachs and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital developed the first clinical protocol for the induction of organ transplantation tolerance in the early 2000s.