Prof. Dragan Primorac, MD, PhD
Professor Dragan Primorac, M.D., Ph.D., is a pediatrician, geneticist, and forensic expert witness. According to one of the leading world publishers, Elsevier BV, Prof. Primorac has been on the list of the top 2% of world scientists for career-long and single-year impact for the last four years. He became the first recipient of the title "Global Penn State University Ambassador" since the University was established in 1855. Currently, he serves as a professor at Eberly College of Science, The Pennsylvania State University, and the University of New Haven in the United States, as well as at medical schools in Split, Rijeka, and Osijek, and REGIOMED Medical School in Germany. He has authored nearly three hundred scientific papers, abstracts, and thirty books or book chapters. Prof. Primorac has been invited to give lectures at 150 conferences worldwide. His work has been published in the most cited journals, including Science and Nature. So far, his papers have been cited 10,200 times (Google Scholar).
In the early '90s, with colleagues from the USA, he pioneered DNA identification of skeletal human remains found in mass graves. During the same period, his group from UConn described the molecular mechanism of Osteogenesis Imperfecta Type I caused by splicing mutations at the donor (5') site. In 2000, as a member of an international consortium, he published a Science paper describing a genetic perspective of human history in Europe, analyzing 22 binary markers of the non-recombining Y chromosome. In 2017, he authored a Nature paper describing the early and largely extinct expansion of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) out of Africa by analyzing human genomes from 148 populations worldwide. In 2017, his research team, for the first time, showed (by using delayed contrast-enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC)) the molecular impact of micro-fragmented adipose tissue containing MSCs on hyaline cartilage regeneration. As one of the pioneers in the field, Prof. Primorac currently applies the personalized medicine paradigm (pharmacogenomics, whole genome sequencing, mesenchymal stem cell treatment, etc.) in routine clinical practice.
In 1997, Prof. Primorac co-founded The International Society of Applied Biological Sciences. So far, more than 6,000 scientists and 700 invited speakers (including ten Nobel laureates) from 75 countries have participated in ISABS conferences held every two years in Croatia in partnership with Mayo Clinic. He founded the "Nobel Spirit".
Prof. Primorac currently serves on the Executive Committee of the International Consortium for Personalized Medicine (IC PerMEd), established by the European Commission. He is also the President of the International Regenerative Medicine Experts Society (IARMES), the Croatian Society for Human Genetics, the Croatian Society for (Precision) Personalized Medicine, and he is a member of the Croatian Prime Minister's Scientific Committee. In 2011, he founded St. Catherine Specialty Hospital, the European center of excellence in personalized medicine. Prof. Primorac has received more than 30 domestic and international awards.