The NIAID Training Experience
NIAID offers a unique and rich training experience. The NIH Bethesda campus is home to more than 1,000 laboratories where scientists are engaged in virtually every area of biomedical research, so expertise in almost any discipline is readily accessible. Inter-Institute interest groups promote interactions between senior scientists and NIH fellows in different disciplines.
The NIH environment encourages scientific exchange—in laboratories, in meeting rooms, and even in the hallways. To learn a new scientific technique, to borrow a reagent, or find out about a new area of research, a trainee travels no farther than down the corridor or to a building across a campus road, or connects directly to colleagues through the interest groups' or the NIH fellows' e-mail servers.
There are other tangible advantages to training at NIAID. Most of the NIAID laboratories are on the NIH campus in a park-like setting. There is an extensive menu of lectures and seminars every week. The renowned National Library of Medicine is adjacent to the NIH campus and the many academic, cultural, and recreational benefits of living in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area are immediately available.
NIAID also has a large research operation in Hamilton, Montana, called the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML). RML offers state-of-the-art equipment, modern facilities with new BSL-3 (and soon, BSL-4) labs, the advantages of small town living—and a great view of the Rockies.
The NIAID training program offers a choice of two pathways: the Combined Clinical and Research Pathway and the Laboratory Research Pathway.
The Combined Clinical and Research Pathway
The Combined Clinical and Research Pathway offers clinical training programs in infectious diseases and allergy and immunology that can lead to board certification for eligible trainees. This pathway seeks to develop clinical and laboratory skills in physicians who are already well grounded in clinical medicine and who intend to pursue academic careers in infectious diseases or allergy and immunology.
The Laboratory Research Pathway
The Laboratory Research Pathway is devoted solely to laboratory research. This pathway is open to both postdoctoral researchers and physicians, and consists of a minimum of 2 to 3 years of laboratory work in any one of NIAID's intramural laboratories.
back to top