[1] Pestka was part of the team working on research involving the genetic code, protein synthesis and ribosome function that led to the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine received by Marshall Warren Nirenberg.

"It was stimulating to see chemicals change the color of fluids, to construct crystal radios, and to make caramel from sugar—however, my mother’s pots and pans were never the same afterward.

"[3] Both his parents encouraged his curiosity; his mother taught him mathematics when he was very young and his father shared his own hobby of building bicycles with basic parts.

Dr. Pestka completed his pediatric and medical internship at Baltimore City Hospital, after which he joined the National Heart Institute in 1962.

While in the Nirenberg Laboratory, he discovered how the genetic code of the mRNA is translated into protein through the small ribosomal subunit, a discovery that was contrary to the scientific thinking at that time.

From 1986 to 2011, he served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Genetics, Microbiology and Immunology at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, New Jersey.

The company initially supplied interferon proteins and antibodies to research scientists, reagents that Pestka had developed over the course of his scientific career but were not readily available.

At the time of his death he was Emeritus Professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

He was cited for his "pioneering achievements that led to the development of the biotechnology industry, to the first recombinant interferons for the treatment of cancers, leukemias, viral diseases such as hepatitis B and C, and multiple sclerosis; to fundamental technologies leading to other biotherapeutics; and for basic scientific discoveries in chemistry, biochemistry, genetic engineering and molecular biology from protein biosynthesis to receptors and cell signaling.