Dragan Primorac

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Minister of Science, Education and Sports
Dragan Primorac

Incumbent
Assumed office 23 December 2003
Preceded by	Vladimir Strugar, Minister of Education and Sports Gvozden Flego, Minister of Science and Technology

Born	7 June 1965 (1965-06-07) (age 43)
Political party	HDZ
12 Januar 2008 Mandate confirmed.

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.

1 Education and experience
2 Fellowships
3 Career in science
4 Picture Gallery

[edit] 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 (results were obtained at the University of Connecticut Medical School in Farmington, CT, USA). 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.

[edit] Fellowships

Dr. Primorac is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Science,the American Society for Human Genetics, Croatian Society for Human Genetics, and the Croatian Society for Osteogenesis Imperfecta and 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, The Award of the Italian Region Veneto for Special Achievements in Promoting Science in the EU.

[edit] Career in science

He is the author more than a hundred scientific research articles and scientific abstracts, about 50 of which are cited in the Current Contents and Science Citation Index databases. Until now he has been cited about 800 times (www.scopus.com). Furthermore, as a guest lecturer he participated in more than 30 professional conferences. 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 U.S. Mayo Clinic, is actively participating in the work of this Congress as a co-organizer (until now about 1700 scientists from nearly 50 countries have participated in the work of the Congress; (www.isabs.hr). Since 2007 organizer of the Congress is ISABS (International Society of Applied Biological Sciences) whose official journal is Croatian Medical Journal.

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 2008 he has been reappointed for his second term.

[edit] Picture Gallery

Dragan Primorac and Shimon Peres, president of the State of Israel	Dragan Primorac and Elias Zerhouni, director of National Institute of Health (USA)	Minister Primorac with Kapil Sibal, minister of science and technology of India	Primorac and Nobel Price Winner Robert Huber and forensic expert Henry Lee
Dragan Primorac and Blanka Vlašić, High Jump World Champion	TKD Club Kocunar and president of the club Dragan Primorac	Dragan Primorac, Zvonimir Boban, Ivano Balić, Franjo Arapović and students at the school competition	Dragan Primorac and Croatian National Football Team