Pharmacogenomics in Clinical Practice

Professor Dragan Primorac, M.D., Ph.D., is a pediatrician, a geneticst and a forensic expert. He is a professor at Eberly College of Science, The Pennsylvania State University and Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven, in the USA and as a professor at Medical Schools in Split and Osijek in Croatia and at Medical School Regiomed, Coburg, Germany and National Forensic Sciences University Gandhinagar, India.. He authored nearly 300 scientific papers and abstracts as well as 20 books/book chapters. Prof. Primorac has been invited to give lectures at 150 conferences all around the world. His work was published in most cited journals, including Science and Nature. So far, his papers have been cited 8150 times (Google Scholar), while H-index is 39. Currently, he is pioneering the application of the personalized medicine paradigm in clinical practice. His interests are in medical genetics, personalized medicine (pharmacogenomics, mesenchymal stem cell treatment, whole genome sequencing etc.), metabolic bone and cartilage disorders, sports medicine, regenerative medicine, population genetics, etc. He founded The International Society of Applied Biological Sciences (ISABS) and St. Catherine Specialty hospital in Zagreb, Croatia. He led many scientific projects, including the EU FP7 projects, S3 project (EU Smart specialization platform projects), IRI 2 projects (The EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation), etc. For his work, he received 21 domestic and international awards.

Professor Wolfgang Höppner, Ph.D., is a biochemist and a molecular geneticist. For more than 20 years, he carried out basic research in molecular and cell biology in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Hamburg and the private Institute for Hormone and Fertility Research (IHF). He investigated the molecular mechanisms of the transcriptional regulation of hormones and nuclear receptors. Since 1993 Prof. Höppner has headed a laboratory for molecular diagnostics from which the company Bioglobe GmbH emerged. This company is internationally active and carries out genetic diagnostics for patients with various genetic diseases. In addition, Bioglobe offers DNA analysis as a service for academic and industrial R&D projects. Prof. Höppner has specialized in supporting clinical studies in which genotype-phenotype correlations or correlations between genotype and therapy are explored. His engagement in personalized medicine and pharmacogenetics has led to a number of gene profiles from which measures for preventive medical measures and therapy decisions can be derived. Prof. Höppner has been involved in more than 20 national and international research collaborations. He has contributed as an author to more than 120 scientific publications and congress abstracts as well as 12 contributions to textbooks about application of molecular diagnostics in medicine, and he has given more than 100 lectures at congresses and symposia around the world.

Professor Lidija Bach-Rojecky, Ph.D., is a pharmacist and a professor of pharmacology at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry in Zagreb, Croatia. For more than 20 years, she is investigating the pathophysiological mechanisms of acute and chronic pain on experimental pain models. She authored more than 25 scientific papers (which received 724 citations, according to Scopus) and more than 50 congress abstracts. She participated in several national scientific projects. In the last two years, she co-authored four scientific papers, one book chapter and several congresses abstracts in the field of pharmacogenomics. For the last several years, she collaborates with St. Catherine's Hospital and Professor Primorac on the implementation of pharmacogenomics in clinical practice.