The Novartis Foundation Series is a popular collection of the proceedings from Novartis Foundation Symposia, in which groups of leading scientists from a range of topics across biology, chemistry and medicine assembled to present papers and discuss results. The Novartis Foundation, originally known as the Ciba Foundation, is well known to scientists and clinicians around the world.

Sir Gordon Ethelbert Ward Wolstenholme OBE FRCP was a British medical doctor, and the founding director of the Ciba Foundation. He was born in Sheffield, the son of a mechanical engineer, and educated at Repton School and Corpus Christi, Cambridge.