Research
From infectious disease to the latest immunotherapy strategies against cancer, the CDI scientists are at the vanguard of medical science. Our experts focus in: T cell biology and immunotherapy; genomics and epigenetics; drug resistance; stem-cell biology; drug discovery; diagnostics; vaccines; and pharmacology. These areas confront critical unmet needs in targeting a variety of cancers including multiple myeloma and lymphoma, breast cancer, colorectal cancers, brain tumors; as well as addressing crucial medical problems including graft-versus-host disease, inflammatory diseases, diabetes, sepsis; and also emerging threats including COVID-19 and other viral infections, and bacterial and fungal pathogens. In total, the CDI faculty have published more than 2,500 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals such as Science and Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, mBio and Lancet. They have attracted 85 grants and contracts from the government, foundations, Pharma and biotech including 58 total NIH awards and two NIH-designated national Centers of Excellence.
Research Focus Areas
Research Training at CDI
The highly collaborative culture at CDI offers an outstanding training experience in which intellectual curiosity and interdisciplinary teamwork is encouraged and nurtured. Trainees including postdoctoral fellows and medical students/ residents, have access to a variety of training resources to acquire new skills that facilitate career development, including development of grants and contracts, preparation of manuscripts and presentations, and more.
Summer Research Scholar Program
Research Rotation for Medical Residents
Careers at CDI
Intellectual Property, Licensing and Partnerships
CDI offers a highly translational ecosystem that fosters research innovation and translational advances. Research innovation leads to the development of intellectual property (IP) and opportunities for out-licensing and commercial partnerships. A goal of the CDI is to encourage the development of IP with the intent of developing downstream products or technologies that will improve patient care.
Research Support
The administrative staff at CDI and HMH provide full supportive services for all research projects including a dedicated, fully staffed business office to help investigators comply with all relevant regulations and policies and managing grants. Financial analysts support grant accounting needs in sponsored research, cost analysis, forecasting, procurement, and budgeting.
Core Facilities
Core facilities essentially bridge the gap between basic and interdisciplinary pre-clinical research and are available to both internal faculty as well as external agencies. The cores at CDI offer robust preclinical support for animal model testing, pharmacology, genetic engineering, imaging, flow cytometry and cell sorting. Furthermore, partnerships from leading groups (academic, not-for-profit and commercial) for genomics, data mining, bioinformatics, and high-end computing are available to researchers at the CDI.