Dragan Primorac

Dr. Dragan Primorac, M.D., Ph.D. (born June 7, 1965) is a medical doctor, geneticist, politician and a member of Croatian Government, currently serving as the Minister of Science, Education and Sports.

Education and experience
Dr. Dragan Primorac graduated from the University of Zagreb, Split Medical School in 1991. He successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, entitled „Osteogenesis Imperfecta as a Result of Faulty Processing of Messenger RNA“, in 1997 at the University of Zagreb, Medical School. He is a pediatrician and forensic science expert. Dr. Primorac worked several years as a postdoctoral fellow and later also as an instructor at the University of Connecticut Medical School in Farmington, CT, USA. He was also trained at the Connecticut State Police Forensic Science Laboratory, Meriden, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), Rockville, the Analytical Genetic Testing Center, Denver, the University hospital St. Christopher's, Allegheny University, Philadelphia, and the Roche Molecular Systems, Alameda, all in the United States.

Fellowships
Dr. Primorac is a member of the Croatian Society for Human Genetics, the Croatian Society for Osteogenesis Imperfecta, the American Academy of Forensic Science and the American Society for Human Genetics. He has received many domestic and international awards, including the Young Investigator Award (American Society for Bone and Mineral Research), the Michael Geisman Fellowship Award (Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation), a joint Award of the City of Split together with Dr. Šimun Anđelinović and a Life Time Achievement Award by the New Haven University, Dr. H. C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science.

Career in science
He is the author of 70 scientific research articles and scientific abstracts, 43 of which are cited in the Current Contents and Science Citation Index databases. Furthermore, as a guest lecturer he participated in more than 30 professional conferences. Until now he has been cited more than 600 times (www.scopus.com). He has taught and continues to teach undergraduate classes at the university medical schools in Zagreb and Split as well as teaching both research and professional graduate seminars at the medical schools in Zagreb, Split, Osijek and Verona, Italy. You can find more about his bibliography in Croatian Scientific Bibliography CROSBI.

Dr. Primorac is a co-founder of the Laboratory for Clinical and Forensic Genetics at the Clinical Hospital in Split. He is a longtime member of the Government Office for Detained and Missing Persons and served as a member of the Council for Technology at the previous Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia before assuming his current post as Minister. For two years he was the main coordinator of an international project that brought together six European countries with the aim of applying and analyzing new DNA methods for the purpose of identification. Dr. Primorac is the founder of the American-European School for Clinical and Forensic Genetics which is being held bi-annually in Croatia. Moreover, for the past four years the Mayo Clinic, one of the most prestigious hospitals in the United States, is actively participating in the work of this Congress as a co-organizer (until now about 1700 scientists from nearly 60 countries have participated in the work of the Congress; (www.isabs.hr).

He is the author of the original results on the genetic origins of the Europeans, with a special interest in the origins of the Croatians and the peoples of the Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has also published extensively in the fields of forensic science, population genetics, and molecular genetics of bone diseases in children, etc. Several renowned media outlets, both electronic and print, have reported on the results of his research work, such as the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, JAMA, Lancet, Science, NBC, Channel 8 (Connecticut TV Station), etc. Dr. Primorac worked at the Clinic for Pediatrics and served for several years as the Head of the Laboratory for Clinical and Forensic Genetics, both at Split Clinical Hospital. He was also Manager of the Polyclinic „Sveti Duh II” (Holy Spirit II) in Zagreb, which is now majority-owned by an Israeli private company. He is mentoring the preparation of five doctoral dissertations as well as three masters and two undergraduate theses.

Since December 2003, Dr. Primorac is a member of the Croatian Government serving as the Minister of Science, Education and Sports.

In addition, see Who is Who in Croatian Science.

Dragan Primorac