Perelman Professorship of Neuroscience II

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
Hongjun Song, PhD

Hongjun Song, PhD, is the Perelman Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. As a pioneer in the field of neuroepigenetics, Dr. Song’s lab developed a “single-cell genetic” approach using retroviruses to manipulate target genes. This resulted in the identification of neural stem cells in the adult brain that are capable of both self-renewal and giving rise to multiple cell types. Dr. Song’s laboratory currently aims to understand novel mechanisms regulating structural and functional plasticity in the mammalian brain. His group focuses on mammalian neural stem cells and neurogenesis, and epigenetic mechanisms in the mammalian nervous system. His work showed that DNA methylation— a process that changes the function of genes without changing genetic code—is a robust form of plasticity in the adult nervous system rather than a stable epigenetic tag in mature neurons.

After completing his bachelor’s at Peking University, P.R. China, Dr. Song earned his PhD from UC San Diego while studying neural growth and plasticity. He also held a postdoctoral position at the Salk Institute for Biological Science. Before joining the University of Pennsylvania in 2017, Dr. Song served as a Full Professor at the Institute for Cell Engineering, the Department of Neurology, and the Department of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Song has mentored over 80 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical fellows, and many undergraduate students. He has received numerous honors and awards including the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2008 and The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Director’s Award in 2017.