Alumni

Peter Tombros
'64 B.S., '68 M.S., Ag Economics

 

As a newly appointed Penn State professor and distinguished executive-in-residence, Peter Tombros donates his time and expertise to train honors students in the Science B.S./MBA program in the Eberly College of Science. In this latest role, he mentors and advises students on their careers and recruits prominent guest speakers. "We talk about how things work in the real world," he says, "everything from ethics to etiquette." Tombros draws on his nearly 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in teaching and inspiring students.

Long before there was a Science B.S./MBA program, Tombros created his own. Tombros says he was always very science oriented, but after earning his B.S. in agricultural sciences and industry, he accepted a fellowship to pursue a master's in agricultural economics. He furthered his growing interest in business with an MBA from The Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968.

His first job out of business school was at Pfizer, Inc., as a product manager. Tombros rose steadily through the Pfizer Marketing Organization in the 1970s, helping to build Pfizer's pharmaceutical business. In 1980, he was named senior vice president and general manager of the Roerig Pharmaceutical Division, and in 1986 he became executive vice president of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

In 1990, he was elected vice president for corporate strategic planning. In that role, Peter helped Pfizer narrow its focus on health care and oversaw the divestiture of non-health-care businesses.

Tombros left Pfizer in 1994 to become CEO of Enzon, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for life-threatening diseases such as severe combined immunodeficiency disease, better known as "Bubble Boy Disease"; acute lymphoblastic leukemia; and hepatitis C. In his eight years as CEO, Tombros built Enzon's market capitalization from $44 million to more than $3 billion, making it one of the top 20 biotech firms in the United States. After retiring from Enzon in 2001, Tombros "took a few months off" before becoming chairman and CEO of VivoQuest, Inc., a private drug discovery company. He retired again when XTL Biosciences acquired VivoQuest last fall. Tombros currently serves on five public company boards: Alpharma, Inc. (where he was recently elected chairman of the oard), Cambrex, Dendrite International, Inc., NPS Pharmaceuticals, and Protalex, Inc.

Tombros has also contributed substantial time and resources to many nonprofit organizations. While at Pfizer, he sat on the boards of Fisk University in Nashville and Dominican College in Orangeburg, New York. He served on Cancer Care and The National Cancer Care Foundation Board of Trustees and the Central Park Conservancy and represented Pfizer in the restoration of historic Brooklyn Borough Hall. From 1998 to 2001, Tombros was chairman of the New Jersey Technology Council, the state's largest technology trade association.

In 2001, Tombros and his wife, Ann, established the Tombros Foundation, which supports a broad range of institutions, including higher education, health care, and social service organizations. At Penn State, the Tombros's have supported the University Libraries, athletics, and the sciences. Tombros has also served on the Ag Constituent Society Board, the advisory panel for the Eberly College of Science B.S./MBA Program, and the University Libraries' committee for the Grand Destiny Campaign.

Tombros was named Alumni Fellow in 1993 and is a life member of the Penn State Alumni Association. Peter and Ann reside in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Elliot Volkin
'42 B.S., Ag and Biological Sciences

Elliot Volkin and his research partner Lazarus Astrachan first observed and described what later came to be known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, in 1956 while working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. They labeled their finding "DNA-like RNA" in their paper in the Journal of Virology. Fellow microbiologists have called the discovery of mRNA, which transmits genetic information from the cell's nucleus to the protein-building ribosomes, "probably the most important event in the history of molecular biology next to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA just three years earlier." But French researchers ultimately received credit and the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for discovering mRNA.

Several scientists in recent years have made the case that subsequent researchers' work was built on Volkin and Astrachan's findings and, therefore, they were really "rediscovering" what had already been discovered in Tennessee.

Volkin is reluctant to comment on the subject, saying only, "I have no hard feelings; that's the way things were." But he is proud of his contribution to molecular science. "Although DNA was the 'poster boy' of nucleic acids," he says, "I felt that the molecular structure of RNA was one of the kudos of our research group." Volkin grew up near Pittsburgh, the youngest of seven children of Lithuanian immigrants. He chose to attend Penn State because it was affordable. Biological sciences and biochemistry were then housed in the College of Agriculture, where Volkin enrolled as an agricultural and biological chemistry major on the advice of an older brother. To help pay for school, he worked after class in the Department of Poultry Husbandry, cleaning up after the chickens and mixing feed.

After graduating in 1942, Volkin continued on to graduate school at Duke University, where he earned master's and doctoral degrees in biochemistry and completed a postdoctoral fellowship. At Duke he met Sylvia Fine, a graduate student in French. They married and moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Volkin would work from 1948 to 1984.

From 1969 to 1980, he served as scientific director of the biochemistry section in the Biology Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. During his tenure at Oak Ridge, he published more than 80 scientific papers and articles and was frequently selected to chair meetings at international conferences. Following his work on RNA associated with bacteriophage, Volkin says he continued his research with mammalian cells in tissue culture, trying to determine how cancer cells differ from normal cells. "While not Earth shaking, it was good, fundamental science," he says.

Volkin is a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists and the American Chemical Society, among other professional societies. He was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in recognition of his meritorious efforts to advance science.

Volkin is a life member of the Penn State Alumni Association. He was married to his late wife, Sylvia, for 55 years, and they have two grown daughters. Volkin lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.