Research Year

Goals: The goal of the research year is to develop, implement and complete a scientific research project so that the Fellow can learn the basics of hypothesis development, design, protocol development and statistical analysis. The project can be clinically or basic science oriented. The current (and future) research efforts that the fellow can participate in include:

Clinical:

  • HIV epidemiology
  • Blood culture utilization
  • Enteric pathogen vaccine development
  • Risk factors for orthopedic surgery infections
  • Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea
  • Staphylococcal enterocolitis
  • Nosocomial infections
  • Anal HPV infections

Basic science:

  • Cryptosporidiosis mucosal immunology
  • HIV pathogenesis and ribozyme
  • Use of transgenic systems to develop novel anti-cryptosporidium drugs
  • Pathogenesis of amebic infections
  • Lyme borreliosis pathogenesis
  • Babesia drug development
  • Vaccine development

Objectives:

The Fellow will be introduced to:

  • Hypothesis development and research design
  • Introduction to statistics
  • Regulations
  • Data collection and management
  • Data analysis

Teaching environment:

  • One-on one mentoring with ID attendings or basic science researcher
  • Research conference
  • Research seminars

Patient characteristics and types of clinical encounters, procedures and services: Depending on research developed

Reading list:

  • Designing Clinical research by Hulley SB & Cummings SR. 1988
  • Biostatistics; The Bare Essentials by Norman GR & Streiner DL

Evaluation: Feedback on day to day progress on the project. Written evaluation by the research mentor. The Fellow will also provide written evaluations of the rotation to the fellowship director