Imre and Rivka met in a labor camp on the Adriatic island of Rab in 1943 and joined a group of Jewish Partisans.
After World War II the family moved to Osijek, where another son, Darko David, was born.
[5] Schlessinger served his compulsory military service with the Golani Brigade and was commissioned an officer.
From 1974 to 1976, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Chemistry and Applied Physics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, working with Watt W. Webb, among others.
"[3] Schlessinger was a member of the faculty of the Weizmann Institute from 1978 to 1991 and was the Ruth and Leonard Simon Professor of Cancer Research in the department of immunology from 1985 to 1991.
In 1990, he was appointed as the Milton and Helen Kimmelman Professor and chairman of the department of pharmacology at the New York University School of Medicine.
[20][21] In 2012, the Hope Funds for Cancer Research selected Schlessinger to receive its Award of Excellence for Clinical Development.
[22] He received, along with Charles Sawyers and Tony Hunter, the 2014 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Biomedicine category for "carving out the path that led to the development of a new class of successful cancer drugs.
[6] Tyrosine kinases play a particularly important role in cancer, and several agents that block their activity are now used as anti-cancer drugs, such as Imatinib or Gleevec.
[29] In 1991, Schlessinger co-founded (with Axel Ullrich and Steven Evans-Freke) the biotechnology company SUGEN to develop ATP-like molecules that would compete with ATP for binding to the catalytic site of receptor tyrosine kinases in cancer treatment.
[31] One of the pipeline products (SU11248) was ultimately developed by Pfizer as Sutent (Sunitinib),[32] approved by the FDA for treating gastrointestinal stromal tumors and renal cell carcinoma.
[34] In April 2011, Plexxikon was acquired by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo for $805 million and an additional $130 m in potential milestone payments.