Prockop named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

Darwin J. Prockop, M.D., Ph.D., the Stearman Chair in Genomic Medicine and a professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, has been named a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow. Prockop will be among 170 new Fellows to be inducted during the NAI’s 4th Annual Conference on March 20 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

NAI Fellows are academic inventors and innovators who are named on U.S. patents and were nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to innovation.

“The award recognizes that basic biomedical research is increasingly making discoveries that have important practical consequences in terms of their commercial value and the benefits they can bring to patients,” Prockop said. “My research group has for years worked on both the basic biology of adult stem cells and their potential use to treat patients with devastating diseases such as parkinsonism, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and brain trauma. The two lines of research are closely interconnected in that the more we learn about the basic biology of the cells, the more we discover ways the cells can be used to treat patients. The award and the multiple patent applications we have filed helps document our progress and encourages us to continue.”

Prockop directs the Texas A&M College of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas. He holds 20 U.S. patents and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Medicine.

The NAI was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.