Rutgers Names Director of Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science at Institute for Health

University officials select researcher Vincent Lo Re following an international search

Vincent Lo Re, an internationally recognized pharmacoepidemiology researcher, has been named director of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science (PETS), a unit of the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research (IFH).

Lo Re is an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and was selected for the position after an extensive international search.

Lo Re’s research focuses on chronic viral hepatitis infection, HIV/viral hepatitis coinfection and drug-induced liver injury. He pioneered the use of electronic health care data for the study of acute and chronic liver diseases and was the first to develop computable phenotypes for many liver-related diseases.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lo Re collaborated with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Sentinel System – a national electronic system for monitoring the safety of its regulated products ­– to evaluate COVID-related complications. Recently, his research has centered around the impact of drug-induced liver injury, initiating first-of-their-kind studies that measured incidence rates and risks of drug-induced acute liver failure.

“I am delighted to welcome to Rutgers, the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, and PETS, a leader as superb and prominent as Dr. Lo Re,” said Brian Strom, chancellor of Rutgers Health. “He is a wonderful scientist, leader and human being. He will be the fifth president of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology housed at PETS, as yet further confirmation of how prominent it has become – a real credit to its founder, Tobias Gerhard.”  

Vin is an exceptionally talented researcher and mentor. I’m confident that under his leadership, PETS will firmly establish itself as one of the world’s leading research centers in the field of pharmacoepidemiology.

Tobias Gerhard

Director, Institute for Health

Lo Re was president of the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology in 2022 and is the Regional Editor for the America’s for Pharmacoepidemiology & Drug Safety, the group’s official journal. He is the chair of the FDA Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and co-chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America/American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Hepatitis C Guidance Panel. Lo Re has been co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s master of science in clinical epidemiology degree program and was twice awarded the Excellence in Teaching Epidemiology Award.

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Lo Re as the new director of PETS,” said Tobias Gerhard, director of IFH. “Vin is an exceptionally talented researcher and mentor. I’m confident that under his leadership, PETS will firmly establish itself as one of the world’s leading research centers in the field of pharmacoepidemiology.”

In 2017, Gerhard founded the Rutgers Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Science. Since its formation, PETS has expanded to 10 multidisciplinary faculty and generated extramural funding of exceeding $30 million in direct costs.

“I’m honored to have been selected as director of PETS, and I’m excited about the center’s highly collaborative and impactful future,” Lo Re said. “I look forward to working with schools and departments across Rutgers to recruit stellar faculty capable of conducting a broad range of rigorous research and enhancing the center’s productivity by developing innovative approaches to leveraging healthcare data.”

Lo Re has more than 15 years of scholarly research utilizing health care data, authoring 200-plus papers. He was selected as the recipient of the HIV Medicine Association Research Award in 2016; the Harold I. Feldman Distinguished Faculty Award from the Penn Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics in 2021; and the COVID-19 Pharmacoepidemiology Research Award from the International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology in 2022.

Lo Re earned a bachelor of science degree from Georgetown University and a master degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a master of science degree in clinical epidemiology, focusing on pharmacoepidemiology, from the University of Pennsylvania during his infectious diseases fellowship training.