Research Training Overview
The goal of the research component of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program at the University of Virginia is to provide a rich interdisciplinary experience in infectious diseases research. The fellowship is designed to recruit outstanding physicians who are motivated to pursue an academic career, with the aim of preparing them to be independent investigators on the faculty of medical schools. The need for such training has recently been articulated by Thomas Cech et al. ("The Biomedical Research Bottleneck", Science 2001; 293:573) who cite the 40% decline in physician-investigators in the last 15 years despite the tremendous promise of translational research in the 21st century. The centerpiece of our program is side-by-side education of predoctoral students, M.D., and Ph.D. postdoctoral fellows. It is through such a system that our Ph.D. graduates can obtain the clinical perspective needed for translational applications of their basic science research, and our M.D. graduates can learn to conduct meaningful and sophisticated research (be it in cell and molecular biology, immunology, or epidemiology). The preceptors are carefully chosen to maximize the opportunities for interactions between clinicians and basic scientists. Twenty of 26 faculty members have a Ph.D. and 11 have an M.D. degree. We believe that this arrangement is optimally situated to train side-by-side scientists with clinical and basic science backgrounds, enriching the research education of both.
26 faculty members from seven departments and two research centers comprise the backbone of this training program and continually foster collegiality and collaboration by trainees. 46% of faculty have co-published papers in the last 5 years. The ability to obtain independent financial support is encouraged for all trainees, and 100% of the preceptors are extramurally supported, while 92% are NIH-supported. Extramural support has almost doubled to $13.5 million in annual direct costs in the last 5 years. Major research themes within the faculty encompass immunology, epidemiology and pathogenesis of infectious diseases.
The first year of the fellowship program is devoted to the development of research skills and the initiation of independent projects that will lead ultimately to success in all areas of research, including independent research design and conduct, publication, and procurement of independent funding. Devotion of the entire first year to research, with no inpatient or outpatient clinical responsibilities for trainees, allows for more rapid development of research skills and independent research programs leading to more productive conduct of research during the clinical years of training, and a higher level of emphasis on successful research scholarship during and following the training period
Each fellow will develop a research program in connection with one or more faculty members from the Infectious Disease Group (Infectious Disease, Geographic Medicine, Epidemiology and Virology) or from another department (e.g. Microbiology, Cellular Biology, etc.). The fellow will participate in all aspects of research, including project definition, experimental design, and interpretation of data. Furthermore, near the end of training as fellows prepare to leave to establish careers as independent investigators, they will be expected to write grant applications such as the Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Awards. With this rigorous research training background, fellows are offered the best chance to succeed as independent investigators and form lifelong research partnerships at the University of Virginia from which to build their research careers.