Biosketch
Norbert Perrimon is the James Stillman Professor of Developmental Biology in the department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a geneticist recognized for his work in signal transduction and the development of functional genomics methods. He is known particularly for the characterization of canonical signaling pathways and the development of methods, such as the FLP-FRT Dominant Female Sterile technique to generate germline mosaics, the Gal4-UAS method to control gene expression both spatially and temporally, and highthrouput RNAi screening. Perrimon was born in France in 1958 and became a U.S. citizen in 2005. He received a doctorate from the University of Paris in 1983. He has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School since 1986.
Research Interests
Perrimon studies a number of fundamental questions in cell signaling and homeostasis. Examples include the mechanisms involved in the control of cell and tissue growth, and how signaling mechanisms are used in the context of maintenance of tissue integrity by stem cell systems, as is the case of the gut that exhibits slow regeneration under normal conditions but accelerated regeneration when injured. His group also studies how tissues, such as muscles, grow, maintain their mass, and communicate with others to maintain physiological and growth homeostasis of the organism.
