Darwin Prockop

Darwin Prockop (born August 31, 1929) is an American biochemist and progenitor cell researcher. He has held academic posts at several universities, and has been a faculty member at the Texas A&M Health Science Center since 2008. Prockop has been elected to several academic societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

Prockop completed an undergraduate degree from Haverford College and a master's degree in animal physiology from Brasenose College, Oxford. He earned a medical degree (1956) from University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in biochemistry (1961) from George Washington University. He has been a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Jefferson Medical College, and Tulane University. Since 2008, he has worked at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, where he is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Medicine and the Stearman Chair in Genomic Medicine. He also serves as Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple.

Prockop's research as a biochemist has focused on collagen and connective tissue diseases such as osteogenesis imperfecta and Marfan syndrome. In 2001, he organized the first scientific meeting focused on mesenchymal stem cells. Stem cell researcher Massimo Dominici said that "the cell therapy landscape would look completely different without his involvement." He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991 and to the Institute of Medicine in 1992. In 1994, he received a Distinguished Graduate Award from the Perelman School of Medicine.