NIAID offers a three-year training program in allergy and immunology. This program, open to physicians who have completed internal medicine and/or pediatric residency training, is designed to provide trainees with high-quality clinical and research skills in a supportive and engaging environment that will enable them to successfully pursue careers in academic medicine. We value and actively seek individuals from a diverse range of backgrounds to join our program. We believe all types of diversity enable innovative approaches to the social, healthcare, scientific, and research needs of our patients and communities.
The NIAID Allergy & Immunology (A&I) Clinical Fellowship Program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Fellows are eligible to sit for the Board of Allergy and Immunology certification examination after successful completion of the first two years of the program.
What's It Like to Train at NIAID
Play the video to hear from fellows and faculty and learn how NIAID will take you from the foundation of medicine to helping determine the next generation of the science of medicine.
Alumni Voices
Find testimonials from graduates of the program and learn what it's like to train in the A & I Fellowship Program at NIAID.
Virtual Tour of the NIH
The majority of clinical training (50%) takes place at the NIH Clinical Center, based on the NIH main campus in Bethesda, MD.
Clinical Rotation Sites
In addition to rotations at the NIH Clinical Center, you will work for 3 months each at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Children’s National Hospital System.
Program Highlights
Four clinical fellows recruited each year:
- Three positions for physicians trained in internal medicine and/or pediatrics
- One position for physicians trained in pediatrics, as a collaborative NIAID/Children’s National Health System pediatric training track
Career Development
- Three-year, ACGME-accredited training program in allergy and immunology, with an option for a fourth and fifth year of research training for highly motivated fellows committed to an academic career
- Focus on individualized career development, including for academic medicine or translational research careers
- Development of outstanding clinical skills and advanced clinical and basic research skills
Training Experience
- First year devoted to clinical training (inpatient and outpatient) in the diagnosis and management of patients (children and adults) with common and complex allergic and immunologic diseases at the NIH Clinical Center and regional academic centers (Children’s National Medical Center, Johns Hopkins Hospital), and private practice (Schreiber Clinic)
- Intensive training in clinical laboratory assessment, clinical genomics, and inpatient management of patients with complex allergic and immunologic diseases at the NIH Clinical Center, including patients on hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and gene therapy protocols
- Broad exposure to rare immunologic diseases in a clinical research setting, including disorders of the adaptive and innate immune systems, such as chronic granulomatous disease, Job’s syndrome, GATA-2 deficiency, hyper-IgM syndromes, CTLA4 haploinsufficiency, interferonopathies; hypereosinophilic syndromes; mastocytosis; and hereditary alpha tryptasemia
- Second year adds research training and development of original research projects in an area of choice, including allergic diseases, immune deficiency and immune dysregulatory diseases, autoinflammatory diseases, HIV, vaccine immunology and clinical trials, and basic immunology
Learning Variety
- Intensive didactic sessions and/or journal clubs held weekly to cover basic immunology, allergic and immunologic diseases, clinical laboratory immunology, clinical genomics, pharmacology, vaccines, clinical trial development, patient safety and quality improvement
- Regular case conferences covering primary immune deficiency, immune dysregulatory, and allergic diseases, attended by senior investigators
- Opportunities for formal research training, including a certificate in clinical research through the NIH Clinical Center, a masters in health science in clinical research through the NIH-Duke University collaborative program, and a Ph.D. through the NIH-Oxford-Cambridge Ph.D. program
Contact Information
You may also contact the NIAID AI Fellowship Program office with questions.
Paneez Khoury, M.D, M.H.Sc.
Program Director, Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Program
Jenna R.E. Bergerson, M.D., M.P.H.
Associate Program Director, Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Program
Bryant Villavicencio, B.A.
Program Coordinator
Banner image credit: Edna, Gil, and Amit Cukierman, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pa