Stocco to Receive Top National Award

Douglas M. Stocco, Ph.D., Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) executive vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, was chosen as the 2012 recipient of the Carl G. Hartman Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Society for the Study of Reproduction. The award is given in recognition of a research career and scholarly activities in reproductive biology.

“Dr. Stocco is truly a national expert who has made important contributions in research,” said TTUHSC President Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D. “We have seen his excellent leadership and dedication to academics. Without question, his commitment to research makes Dr. Stocco deserving of this award.”

Stocco joined the TTUHSC Department of Cell Biology and Biochemistry in 1974. He received several honors such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Career Development Award in 1985 and the NIH MERIT Award in 1996. The NIH has funded his career since 1984. Stocco’s research career has focused on the mechanisms involved in steroid hormone synthesis. His research achievements include the identification and characterization of a novel protein, which his laboratory named the Steroidogenic Acute Regulatory, or StAR, protein.

He has received many top awards presented by the Texas Tech University System such as the Grover E. Murray Distinguished Professor in 1997, the highest distinction a faculty member can attain. In 2005, he was elected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow. This year, the TTUHSC School of Medicine honored him by renaming the Dean’s Faculty Excellence in Research Award, the Douglas M. Stocco Scholarship/Research Award.

In recognition of his work, Stocco was given the Research Award by the Society for the Study of Reproduction in 1997, the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Distinguished Scientist Award in 1997 and the British Endocrine Society Transatlantic Lecture Award in 1999. In 2009, Stocco received the Distinguished Scientist of the Year Award from the Society for Reproduction and Fertility in the United Kingdom.

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