Clinical/Research Endocrinology Fellowship

The clinical/research endocrinology fellowship program consists of one year of clinical training followed by two years of research under the direct mentorship of our faculty.

Research experiences range from basic laboratory investigations involving in vitro experiments or preclinical models to human physiology studies, clinical trials, epidemiology, and health outcomes research. The goal is to train future physician-scientists capable of pursuing academic careers and independent research funding.

For your first year of fellowship training in this track, you will follow the same program as the clinical endocrinology fellowship. Your training will include a minimum of 12 months of clinical work, the balance devoted to your research project.

Our fellowship training program provides trainees ample exposure to clinical, basic, and/or clinical/translational research. Research experience is acquired through mentorship, active participation in individual research projects, and attendance at sectional research conferences, interdepartmental research meetings, and attendance at local, regional, and national scientific meetings.

Yale's clinical/research endocrinology fellowship provides an intensive mentored experience of at least two years in biomedical research. As a fellow in this track, you can choose to extend your research fellowships by one to two years to obtain more extensive investigative training. Fellows in the clinician-educator track will pursue a more limited (usually clinical) mentored research project during the two-year span of this program.

Research Mentorship

Section faculty have vast research interests, spanning the spectrum of clinical and basic research techniques in pursuit of improved understanding of and better treatments for endocrine and related diseases.

As a fellow, you have access to a wide variety of potential mentors, both within endocrinology and across the larger Yale research community, in areas such as:

• Basic and translational immunology
• Cell biology
• Developmental biology
• Basic biochemistry
• Clinical physiology
• Clinical trials
• Epidemiology
• Health outcomes research

You also have access to the vast resources of one of the world’s premier universities to develop expertise in techniques ranging from cutting-edge genetics and genomics, molecular genetic manipulations in preclinical models of disease, advanced imaging techniques, as well as advanced clinical trial design, personalized medicine, and clinical trials.

The major focus areas of research in the section are carbohydrate metabolism (type 1 and type 2 diabetes and obesity) and calcium, phosphate, and bone metabolism. Below is a brief overview of the major areas of research with links to the individual faculty members’ research programs.

Research in this area focuses on the immunopathogenesis of autoimmune diabetes, immune therapy, the artificial pancreas, central sensing of hypoglycemia, glucose counterregulation, and hypoglycemia unawareness syndrome. There is close cooperation with pediatric endocrinology and immunobiology.

Research in this area focuses on the pathogenesis and genetics of insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, obesity in children, adolescents, and adults, the central regulation of appetite and weight regulation, mechanisms of action of novel glucose-lowering drugs, clinical complications and outcomes of type 2 diabetes, vascular complications of diabetes, reproductive complications of insulin resistance, PCOS and diabetes, and the regulation of pancreatic beta-cell glucose sensing and insulin secretion. There is close cooperation with investigators in pediatrics, digestive diseases, physiology, radiology and biomedical imaging, and obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences.

Research in this area encompasses the regulation of osteoclast development and activity, the physiology and pathophysiology of parathyroid hormone-related protein, the calcium-sensing receptor, the sensing and hormonal regulation of extracellular phosphate as well as clinical/translational studies in patients with osteoporosis, X-linked hypophosphatemic rickets, cancer hypercalcemia, and bone metastases.

Application to Yale’s clinical/research endocrinology fellowship is done exclusively through ERAS. Interested applicants should submit their materials through ERAS when the application cycle opens in the spring.

Application Requirements:

• Completed ERAS application
• CV
• Personal statement
• Three letters of recommendation