Infectious Diseases Fellowship

Our goals are to identify and to recruit outstanding applicants to our program, to help them learn to think critically and to acquire research skills and experience that will prepare them for careers in clinical/translational research in globally significant infectious diseases that will make a real contribution to improving health. The program is tailored to each individual trainee yet is designed to assure that all gain core competencies to be able to perform top quality clinical/translational research. The formal programs of each trainee will vary, depending on their prior training and current plans for their careers. Trainees who do not already have an advanced degree (e.g., PhD, MPH) are encouraged to enroll in either a PhD or a Master of Health Science degree program during their training. The skills that they gain through our program of focused didactic training, interactions with a diverse group of scholars in a multidisciplinary academic community and a mentored research experience with outstanding scientists who are experienced mentors will provide them with the tools to begin successful careers in academic pediatric infectious diseases.

Two Training Tracks

Clinically-based and Laboratory-based translational research – with opportunities for international research (Global Health) in either track. Figure at right illustrates the tracks and training faculty. The background Globe represents the conduct of research in globally significant infectious diseases. Faculty with active international research collaborations are designated with an asterisk (*).

Opportunities for Advanced Degrees

Master of Health Science (MHS) Degree Program is offered through the School of Medicine. It requires 2 years of time dedicated to training and mentored research including course work appropriate for our fellows and either a thesis or a manuscript suitable for publication. This degree can be completed during the second and third years of fellowship, while completing an intensive mentored research project.

The Investigative Medicine Program (IMP) , inaugurated in 1999 as a Department in the Graduate School, offers a number of courses well suited to the needs of our trainees. This program also grants the PhD degree and is directed exclusively to physicians, most of whom enter the program as fellows in clinical departments. The IMP’s parallel paths of training emphasize either laboratory-based or clinically-based translational research. Students in IMP are required to meet the same rigorous standard to complete the requirements for the PhD as is any graduate student, but it is tailored to the unique circumstances of physician-scientists in training. We will support fellows who apply for the PhD in Investigative Medicine, which typically requires an additional 1-2 years of training (4-5 years total to complete both the fellowship and PhD).

Application

For more information, please read our Fellowship Training Brochure. Applications are currently being accepted through the ERAS system. Information on our application process for 2021-22 can be found here in a letter to prospective applicants. For additional assistance, please contact our Program Coordinator, Ms. Karen Lavery.

Elijah Paintsil, FAAP, MBChB
Professor; Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases), Pediatrics; Professor of Public Health, Yale School of Public Health; Professor of Pharmacology, Molecular Medicine, Pharmacology, and Physiology; Professor of Management, School of Management
The Paintsil laboratory focuses on increasing our understanding of the host determinants of individual differences in response to antiretroviral therapy; biomarkers and pathogenesis of increasing incidence of cancers in HIV treatment-experienced individuals.
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Eugene Shapiro, MD
Professor of Pediatrics (General Pediatrics) and of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases); Vice Chair for Research, Department of Pediatrics; Deputy Director, Investigative Medicine PhD Program; Co-Director of Education, Yale Center for CLinical Investigation
Dr. Shapiro received a B.A. with a major in English Literature from Yale College in 1970 and an M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, in 1976. He completed a residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 1979 and a two-year fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh in 1981. He completed another two-year fellowship in clinical epidemiology (Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program) at Yale in 1983.
He has been on the faculty at Yale since 1983, where he sees patients, teaches, and conducts research. He is currently Professor of Pediatrics, of Epidemiology and of Investigative Medicine and is Vice Chair for Research of Yale’s Department of Pediatrics. He is also Deputy Director of Yale’s PhD Program in Investigative Medicine and is Co-Director of Education and Director of Child Health Research for Yale’s Center for Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Shapiro is board certified in both Pediatrics (1980, unlimited) and Pediatric Infectious Diseases (1994, 2000, 2008). He served a 6-year term (2 years as Chair) as a member of the Infectious Diseases sub-board of the American Board of Pediatrics. This is the group that writes the questions for the certifying examination. Dr. Shapiro has more than 250 publications (more than 150 in peer-reviewed journals), most of which are studies related to vaccines. He has been the principal investigator of many clinical studies, a number of which have been funded by highly competitive R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has also received funding from private foundations and from industry, including from Connaught, from Pasteur Merieux and from Merck Laboratories.
Dr. Shapiro has been a consultant to the World Health Organization (for both the Department of Vaccines and Biologicals and for the Acute Respiratory Infections Control Programme) and was Chair of the Advisory Group for the Epidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Health and Human Development. He also served as a Special Advisor to the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine Advisory Committee. He has been either Chair or a member of the Data Safety and Monitoring Boards for numerous clinical trials, including clinical trials of the efficacy of vaccines, many of which were (or are currently) funded by the National Institutes of Health. He has served as a member of a permanent NIH study section for a 4-year term and has been an ad hoc reviewer for the NIH many times. He has also served as a reviewer for grant proposals and/or awards for the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, the Department of Health of the United Kingdom, the University of Amsterdam, the Czech Health Research Council and the Karolinska Institute.
In 2014, Dr. Shapiro received the Stanley A. Plotkin Lectureship in Vaccinology Award for career achievement for research in vaccinology. In 2017, he received the Pediatric Diseases Society Distinguished Physician Award for “an extensive and distinguished career in pediatric infectious diseases.”
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