Which medical school did you graduate from and when?
Did my undergraduate studies at Rice University and was named a Distinguished Alumnus of Rice in 2002. I received my M.D. from Harvard in1959. Did cardiovascular-endocrine research at the National Institutes of Health. Worked with Eugene Yates at Harvard, which led to a landmark review article on the control of plasma concentrations of adrenocortical hormones (Physiol Rev 42: 359-443, 1962.). I followed this with some self-directed work and a summer course on engineering principles of feedback control and computer modeling of physiological control systems. Gene Yates and I were charter members of the Biomedical Society, of which I was President in 1976. I joined ALZA Corp. in 1971 and directed research at ALZA Corp. from 1974 until the early 1980's, from which came various drug delivery systems-based products, including the transdermal scopolamine 'patch' for motion sickness. In consideration of the fact that sometimes the leading source of variance in drug response arises from patients' variable intake of prescribed medicine(s), I co-founded APREX Corp, in 1986, and AARDEX Ltd in 1995 as the first developers and manufacturers of pharmaceutical packages that can electronically compile drug dosing histories in ambulatory patients. I am professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of California-San Francisco and, until I went emeritus this past April, was professor of pharmacoepidemiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. I have had only 3 graduate students. My real interest is not in teaching students to become analysts, which is the orientation of the PhD thesis, but rather to teach people how to integrate. Skilled integrators in today's world become Chief Executive Officers or Chairmen of their respective firms, or Systems Biologists. I count 14 people who have worked for me, and who have gone on to be CEO's or chairmen. In recent years, I have been named a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ISPE, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Why they love me in Edinburgh is an interesting story of cascading consequences, beyond the scope of this already long paragraph?

Which patient has had most effect on your work, and why?
I left patient care in 1961, so this question doesn't apply.

What is your best-published work?
I've been a professor of four different disciplines: physiology (U Pittsburgh, 1963-70), biomedical engineering (U Southern California, 1970-71), biopharmaceutical sciences (U California SF, adjunct, 1986-present), and pharmacoepidemiology (Maastricht U, 20% time, 1986-2004), so there is a four-fold answer to the question.

In physiology: Urquhart J. Blood-borne signals — the measuring and modelling of humoral communication and control. The Physiologist 13(1):7-41, 1970.
[14th Bowditch Lecture of the American Physiological Society (1969)]

In biomedical engineering: Urquhart J, Krall RL, Li CC. Adrenocortical secretory function: communications and control aspects. Automatica 6: 193-205, 1970.
[Translated and published in the Russian language edition of Automatica. Republished in slightly modified form in: Technical and Biological Problems of Control — A Cybernetic View, edited by A.S. Iberall and J.B. Reswick, Proceedings of International Federation of Automatic Control, pp. 150-158, 1970. (Distributed by Instrument Society of America, Pittsburgh, PA).]

In biopharmaceutical sciences: Eckenhoff B, Theeuwes F, Urquhart J. Osmotically actuated dosage forms for rate-controlled drug delivery. Pharmaceutical Technology 5: 35-44, 1981.
[Recognized by Pharmaceutical Technology in 1990 as one of its "papers of the decade".]

In pharmacoepidemiology: Petri H, Urquhart J. Channeling bias in the interpretation of drug effects. Stat Med 10: 577-81, 1991.

What is the best piece of advice you have received?
March to your own drummer.

What is the best advice that you can give to a new person in the field?
Go to work for a company that has exciting technological prospects in a field of your interest, and which is small enough when you join that you have a reasonable chance of influencing the direction of its work, the success of which will greatly increase your net worth. If that happens, you have the freedom to choose your future direction(s).

What is your greatest regret?
Not spending enough time with my 3 kids in their formative years.

What apart from your partner is the passion of your life?
Pharmacodynamics.

What is your greatest fear?
Any combination of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse.

What are you currently reading?
A history of the Spanish Armada, in preparation for a talk to the Saturday Morning Club of Palo Alto, founded in 1921, and consisting of a group of about 15 geezers, distinguished in various callings, who meet every 3rd Friday evening over good food and drink at a member's house, to hear him give a scholarly talk. I've given 32 of these on a wide range of topics, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to a short analysis of the musical motifs in Der Ring des Niebelungen. Everyone is supposed to depart before it becomes Saturday morning, whence the name. Several years ago, I catalyzed the formation of a similar group in Edinburgh, called the Illuminati (after the Scottish Enlightenment, which arose in the 18th century from the gathering, over good food and drink, of Adam Smith, Lord Kames, David Hume, and other worthies, focused mainly on notions of self-government). The Edinburgh group meets ca. quarterly, which has allowed me, so far, not to miss any of the meetings.

Which is your favorite country?
For living and prospering, the USA. For creature comforts, Belgium, which has the best cuisine and country inns in Europe.

What do you think is the most exciting field of science at the moment?
Systems biology.

What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
Communicating novel findings.

What is your favorite journey, and why?
The rail trip between Edinburgh and London, on a weekday, which is when the dining car is working.

What is your favorite saying?
When controversy erupts about a prescription drug's putative hazards: did the product bring the problem to the patients, or did the patients bring the problem to the product? (Experience teaches that the latter is substantially more likely than the former.)

What is the least enjoyable job you've ever had?
Surgical internship, back in the iron-man days of working every other night and every other weekend. I learned a tremendous amount, and gained enough surgical know-how to make surgery-based preparations an integral part of my subsequent research in physiology, but the sleep deprivation was very difficult, though my tolerance for sleep deprivation increased greatly in the past 20 years. Perhaps commuting between California and The Netherlands for the past 18 years has had something to do with that.

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