Keynote Presentation: Prof Brian L. Strom, Rutgers University
| Sunday, November 1, 2026 |
| 16:00 - 16:45 |
| Lecture Theatre 3 |
Speaker
Prof Brian Strom
Rutgers University
Pharmacoepidemiology: Past, Present, and Future, and Selected Lessons from a Career in Pharmacoepidemiology
Abstract
Pharmacoepidemiology is the study of the use and effect of drugs in populations. It applies the methods of Epidemiology to the content area of Clinical Pharmacology. This talk will provide a brief overview of the history of the field, its potential, and its current state. Brief examples will be given of policy and practice relevance, selected from the presenter’s career experiences. The talk then will provide important scientific career lessons for the clinical epidemiologist, for the clinical pharmacologist, and most of all for being a pharmacoepidemiologist. Examples include not letting methodologic perfection become the enemy of the important, and that large sample size and fancy analyses can never correct for poor study design, or poor data. It is critical therefore to understand the sources and limitations of the data being analyzed. It will then review some important personal lessons about a career in pharmacoepidemiology. Finally, it will provide some speculations as to the field’s future, scientifically and logistically.
Biography
Brian L. Strom served for 12 years as Inaugural Chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs at Rutgers University. Before that, he was the Executive Vice Dean for Institutional Affairs, Founding Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Founding Director of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his BS from Yale University, MD from Johns Hopkins University, completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco, and obtained his MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Strom is internationally recognised as one of the founders of pharmacoepidemiology, pioneering the use of large automated databases in epidemiological research. His work has significantly influenced medical policy, including changing long-standing recommendations.
He has authored 18 books and more than 650 papers and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. He has mentored generations of clinical epidemiologists. He has also served on major national and international advisory committees and received numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to research, education, and public health.
