Postdoctoral Fellowship programs traditionally have only focused on preparing fellows for a career in academics. In the past decade there has been a growing trend of fellows that opt for industry positions immediately following their fellowship. This shift in post-fellowship employment renders the traditional academic-focused fellowship to be superfluous to PhD scientists who are considering industry as their next career step.
The Institute of Translational Immunology (ITI) was created at UW Medicine to transform the postdoctoral fellowship into a program to train fellows to conduct research in translational immunology and prepare them for career trajectories in either industry or academics. The ITI believes that by training immunology fellows to conduct translational immunology, not only will improve the readiness of postdoctoral fellows to move into the next career level, but the pipeline of translational immunology research therapeutics and vaccines will be greatly enhanced.
Our Mission
The mission of the Institute for Translational Immunology is to train the next generation of scientific leaders and advance translational immunological research through rigorous postdoctoral development within a formalized network of interdisciplinary, immunology-focused biomedical research centers.
Center’s Goals
The Institute of Translational Immunology (ITI) will:
- Train the next generation of scientists in translational immunology research
- Create scientific research HUBs to connect and create interdisciplinary research collaborations focused on translational immunology
- Conduct ground-breaking research in translational immunology to discovery and develop new treatments and vaccines that improve human health