Peter A. Merkel, M.D., M.P.H.

Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology

Dr. Merkel is an internationally recognized research and clinical expert in vasculitis and scleroderma, diseases he has studied for more than 20 years. He is the principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC), the leading research infrastructure for vasculitis clinical investigation in North America, with additional projects worldwide.  He is also a founding member of the NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN).  Dr. Merkel serves as the Chief of Rheumatology at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Dr. Merkel’s research focuses on clinical trial design and conduct, outcome-measure development, clinical epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, and biomarker discovery.  He is the Chair of the OMERACT Vasculitis Working Group.  Dr. Merkel has also conducted substantial research in scleroderma, with a focus on outcome measures and clinical-trial design.   

He completed his residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and his fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Merkel receives the majority of his research support from the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and receives additional funding from industry sources and private foundations. He has been an author on over 350 scientific publications.