Two Morgridge Institute investigators have received generous endowed professorships in 2025, giving them flexible long-term support for their research directions.
Morgridge Investigator Jing Fan has received the new Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr. Chair in Metabolism, named after the market research pioneer and UW–Madison alumnus who developed the famous Nielsen television rating system. Nielsen is also a former president and trustee of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Board of Trustees.
Fan and her team study how immune cell metabolism is reprogrammed in response to changes in cellular state and environments. This dynamic remodeling is especially critical during immune cell activation and in response to cancer tumor environments.
And Morgridge Investigator Kenneth Poss, who joined Morgridge in 2025, was honored with the James W. Neupert Chair to support his groundbreaking work on cardiovascular disease. James created the endowed chair to honor the “determination and optimism” of his late father, John Neupert, who fought a long battle with heart disease before it took his life at age 57.
Poss was the first scientist to discover that zebrafish, a model organism important to biology, has the capability to regenerate heart tissue after damage — something humans are not capable of. The Poss Lab is exploring the fundamental mechanisms of zebrafish heart regeneration and the potential to unlock the same life-saving mechanisms for people suffering from heart damage.
Endowed professorships are a powerful way to support innovative scientific research, giving scientists funding stability and the flexibility to pursue bold ideas. Fan and Poss join several other Morgridge PIs with named professorships, including:
- Paul Ahlquist, director, the John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Center for Research in Virology;
- Anthony Gitter, Jeanne Rowe Endowed Chair in Virology;
- Melissa Skala, Carol Skornicka Chair in Biomedical Imaging;
- Josh Coon, Thomas and Margaret Pyle Chair in Metabolism; and
- Phil Newmark, Burnell R. Roberts Chair in Regenerative Biology.