Perelman Professorship of Cell and Developmental Biology
In 2011, Ray and Ruth Perelman made a historic gift to permanently endow Penn’s medical school, which was renamed the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. From the endowment funds, Perelman Professorships were created to recognize faculty members who are making a transformative impact on academic medicine. Perelman Professorships are awarded to both current Penn professors and new faculty recruited from around the world.
The Perelmans’ endowment of the medical school followed the couple’s earlier naming gift for the Ruth and Raymond Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, Penn Medicine’s state-of-the-art outpatient center. Through their philanthropy, the Perelmans became crucial partners in making Penn Medicine one of the most influential and innovative academic medical centers in the U.S.
Raymond G. Perelman (1917–2019) was the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of RGP Holdings, a private holding company comprising an array of manufacturing, mining, and financial interests. He and Ruth Caplan Perelman (1921– 2011) were married for 70 years. The Perelmans were counted among Philadelphia’s most prominent and generous philanthropists. They made pathbreaking gifts to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its adjacent Perelman Building, the Kimmel Center and Perelman Theater, the Perelman Jewish Day School, and many other Jewish cultural and welfare organizations. Both the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Drexel University have honored Ray’s extraordinary support by naming areas of their campuses in his honor.
At Penn, Mr. Perelman became a powerful advocate for all of Penn Medicine’s missions. In his later years, he could often be seen on campus or at medical school events such as graduation and the celebration of the Perelman School of Medicine’s 250th year. He particularly enjoyed meeting Penn’s incoming medical students.
A Wharton alumnus and recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Penn, he served as a Penn Medicine Trustee from 2002 to 2012. In 2011, he was awarded Penn’s Medal for Distinguished Achievement, one of the University’s highest honors, to recognize “his untiring efforts and immeasurable contributions to the health and well-being, education and cultural opportunities in Philadelphia and beyond.”
Current Chairholder
Marisa S. Bartolomei, PhD
Marisa S. Bartolomei, PhD, is the Perelman Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology, Director of the Institute of Regenerative Medicine Program in Reproductive Medicine, and co-Director of the Penn Epigenetics Institute at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
In 1993, Dr. Bartolomei was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1999 and full Professor in 2006. She is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2006, Dr. Bartolomei received the Society for Women's Health Research Medtronics Prize for Contributions to Women's Health. In 2011, she received the Jane Glick Graduate School Teaching Award from the Perelman School of Medicine and a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. She became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2014 and was elected Member-At-Large of the Section on Biological Sciences for AAAS (2016-2020 term). Dr. Bartolomei is the recipient of the 2017 Genetics Society Medal from the UK Genetics Society. Her research addresses the epigenetic mechanisms of genomic imprinting and X inactivation, as well as the impact of adverse environmental insults on epigenetic gene regulation using the mouse as a model.
Dr. Bartolomei received her BS from the University of Maryland and then obtained her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Shirley Tilghman at Princeton University.