The Isaac Norris Professorship

The Professorship was established in 1997 by the bequest of Isaac Norris, IV (b. 1865), an 1888 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law and scion of the prominent Norris family.

The Norris family is renowned for accomplishments in science, medicine, and civic leadership. Isaac Norris (1671–1735) was a successful merchant and the first mayor of Philadelphia; his son Isaac Norris, II (1701–1766) was Speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly from 1751 to 1764.

Among the family’s many contributions to Penn and Penn Medicine was Isaac Norris, II’s service as a University Trustee. Nearly 200 years later, William Fisher Norris, MD (1838–1901), a graduate of the Perelman School of Medicine Class of 1861, co-founded the Department of Ophthalmology and is honored with an endowed professorship.

Current Chairholder
Gideon Dreyfuss, PhD

Gideon Dreyfuss, PhD received a BSc in chemistry and physics from Hebrew University, an MSc in biochemistry from Tel-Aviv University, and a PhD in biological chemistry from Harvard University. He was a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT. He joined the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology at Northwestern University in 1981, becoming Professor in 1987. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the Perelman School of Medicine since 1990.

Dr. Dreyfuss is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Medicine, and the European Academy of Sciences; he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Dreyfuss’ research is focused on RNA-binding proteins, RNA-protein complexes, and the survival of motor neurons complex, which are key gene expression regulators in eukaryotes linked to many diseases.