The Harry A. Guess - Merck Scholarship in Pharmacoepidemiology

Dr. Peter Kim, President of Merck Research Laboratories, is pleased to announce the establishment of the Harry A. Guess-Merck Scholarship in Pharmacoepidemiology at the University of North Carolina (UNC). As many of you know, Harry Guess, M.D., Ph.D., established the Epidemiology Department at Merck Research Laboratories in 1985, and retired as vice president from Merck in 2003, in order to become the first director of the Center of Excellence in Pharmacoepidemiology and Public Health at UNC, and professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Harry led the UNC Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTS), which focuses on the optimal use of drugs, medical devices and biological products in pediatrics. He also obtained NIH funding to allow UNC to be part of a large NIH roadmap initiative to study the dynamic assessment of patient-reported chronic disease outcomes (PROMIS). Harry’s career has straddled pharmacoepidemiology and public health, and he strived to address practical issues facing the industry and clinicians with an academic and innovative approach to complex problems. He has made notable contributions to research on vaccines, the natural history of complex disease, development and validation of clinical trial endpoints and patient reported outcomes, and pharmacoepidemiology, in many cases setting the industry standard.

Harry was a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Preventive Medicine, and the American College of Epidemiology. He has co-authored more than 150 research articles and served on the editorial boards of Epidemiology, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, and Journal of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He was named to Who’s Who in Medicine and Health in 2003. He was on the board of directors of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology (2001-2005) and the Drug Information Association (1989-1991). He served as president of the DIA in 1992. He has also served on numerous governmental grant committees, including the FDA Pharmacoepidemiology grant review committee (1990-2001), AHCPR Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research Grant Review Committee (1992, 1995 Chairman), and as an external advisor to CDC Large Linked Database Project for post-marketing vaccine safety studies (1990-1997). He gave invited congressional testimony on medical data privacy in 1998. Dr. Guess received a lifetime achievement award from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology in August of this year.

Over the years, Harry has been a mentor to numerous junior and senior scientists at Merck, UNC and other institutions, guiding their development and improving their understanding of epidemiological concepts. His success in academia and research has been remarkable, yet his research endeavors were always accomplished while pursuing one of his passions: teaching and advising graduate students. For this reason, Merck is gratified to establish a scholarship fund for doctoral students in Harry’s name in pharmacoepidemiology at University of North Carolina.

Individuals wishing to contribute to the Harry A. Guess – Merck Scholarship in Pharmacoepidemiology can send donations to the following address:

The Harry A. Guess – Merck Scholarship in Pharmacoepidemiology
Attn: Charlotte Parks
Executive Director, UNC-CH SPH Foundation, Inc
UNC School of Public Health
200 N. Greensboro Street, Suite C-22
Chapel Hill, NC 27599

Please be sure to include the full name of the scholarship when sending in donations to ensure that the funds are applied correctly. To those of you able to support this scholarship, thank you.