Internal Medicine is chaired by William Busse, the renowned Asthma expert and translational researcher. Pediatrics is chaired by Ellen Wald, the distinguished Infectious Diseases expert and translational researcher. Both are committed to research in infectious diseases and public health, and the development of a Center for Infectious Diseases to foster basic and translational investigation. A thrust of the Center will be the development of translational infectious disease research through a formal collaboration between the sections of Infectious Diseases and the Departments of MMI and Bacteriology. A center-supported clinical and translational research unit has already been created to facilitate these collaborations. The establishment of this unit is in line with the strategic plan for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, the UW Institute of Clinical and Translational Research, and the NIH Roadmap.
The source of MD fellows in this Training Program will be from Internal Medicine’s Section of Infectious Diseases. Three faculty trainers in this training program are Pediatricians (Klein, Huttenlocher and Gern), but each also is appointed in Medicine, with Klein also in the section of Adult Infectious Disease. The section of Adult Infectious Disease will thus be emphasized here. The Infectious Disease section in Internal Medicine is composed of two research groups – basic or translational research, and clinical investigation. The members of both the basic/translational and clinical research divisions of Infectious Diseases have relatively light clinical service loads and therefore have investigation as their primary duty. All of these faculty have active research programs focusing on a range of bacterial, fungal, and viral pathogens, immunology, and epidemiology. These faculty devote 80% of their time to research. The ID section faculty’s productivity and research prominence are demonstrated by numerous research awards, service on numerous scientific journal editorial boards, study sections, as well as by organization of scientific meetings and courses. Four of the Infectious Diseases faculty (Klein, Kenney, Striker, and Andes) are trainers in the Training Program. The emphasis of this group includes fungal and viral pathogenesis, therapeutics, and host immunity. Three additional faculty will participate as basic and translational research trainers (Gern, Huttenlocher and Watkins). They are from outside of the Infectious Diseases Section, but interact closely with the section and MMI community. The focus of this group includes immunology and virology. These faculty participate heavily in training graduate and postdoctoral learners, and are funded by NIH or equivalent grants. The 7 faculty trainers affiliated with Infectious Diseases currently train both pre- and post-doctoral trainees.
For more information regarding these departments, please see their respective websites:
