Fellowship Program Resources

The clinical resources of the current training program include a large tertiary referral allergy/immunology patient population, an NIH-sponsored General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), and the inpatient units of Duke University Medical Center. The types of patients seen here most frequently include those with difficult to manage asthma and/or rhinitis, severe atopic dermatitis, idiopathic anaphylaxis, food hypersensitivity, recurrent infections, and genetic immunodeficiency disease. The Division provides care for one of the largest populations of patients with genetically-determined immunodeficiency diseases in the U.S. These patients are followed closely on the GCRC Unit, where various clinical research protocols are ongoing. Among these are a very active bone marrow transplantation program for infants with T cell immunodeficiency diseases and a thymus transplantation program for patients with DiGeorge Syndrome. These immunodeficient patients are a unique resource for the study of T cell ontogeny, mechanisms of tolerance induction, and cooperation of genetically disparate immune cells. A major interest is in the molecular bases of these various diseases and in future gene therapy.