Honoring Penny and Jay Lieberman
The 2017 gala centered around the remarkable achievements of a husband and wife duo: Penny and Jay Lieberman. Penny, was an advocate for our mission for over a decade. She was a talented entrepreneur and was the founder and CEO of several organizations devoted to creating and developing safe, creative, and educational toys for children. Jay’s interest in the Foundation began when Penny told him about our work; he responded to us with a major three-year commitment from his Derfner Foundation.
Jay Lieberman formed the Derfner Foundation 25 years ago with his senior partner, Harold Derfner and Mr. Derfner’s wife, Helen. Jay told us that the mission of his foundation is simply to ensure that it would do all the good possible. A review of some of the major interests of the foundation reflects Jay’s dedication to first-class heath care and to providing opportunities for the best education possible for needy and talented children. His funding has been essential in supporting the work of talented young investigators at Johns Hopkins. The Derfner support also underwrote the production of our prize-winning textbook Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine Gender in the Genomic Era 3rd Edition, which contains contributions from 50 of the world’s most accomplished scientists examining gender differences at the molecular level.