Allergy Immunology Fellowship Program
Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics
The University at Buffalo, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, offers comprehensive fellowship training programs in Allergy and Immunology. The subspecialty training program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education/American Medical Association, American Boards of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics and is fully integrated between the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics. Fellows are expected to spend two years in the program, which provides clinical and research experience in the fields of allergy and clinical immunology. Member institutions of the Graduate Medical/Dental Education Consortium of Buffalo (GMDECB), State University of New York at Buffalo include:
- University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
- University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine
- Buffalo General Hospital
- Children's Hospital of Buffalo
- Erie County Medical Center
- Mercy Hospital
- Millard Fillmore Hospitals
- Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center
- Roswell Park Cancer Institute
- Sisters of Charity Hospital
- Veterans Administration Medical Center
The educational program includes allergic and immunologic disorders, including asthma and other related disorders. All Fellows are provided with opportunities to apply immunologic theories, principles and techniques to the investigation, diagnosis and treatment of a broad spectrum of allergic and immunologic diseases. The education involves supervised patient care, rotations through cooperating services, attendance at conferences, lectures, journal clubs, demonstrations, reading and preparation and conduct of teaching assignments.
Clinical education includes direct patient contact in both the outpatient and inpatient settings, clinical care conferences and record reviews. The Fellows participate in the following clinical activities:
- Allergy/Immunology Clinic at the Buffalo General Hospital (BGH), Monday morning
- Autoimmune Clinic (BGH), Monday afternoon
- Immunology Clinic, Children's Hospital of Buffalo (CHOB), Tuesday morning, OR
- Allergy/Immunology Clinic, Erie County Medical Center, Tuesday morning
- Allergy and Asthma Clinic (CHOB), Tuesday afternoon
- Allergy and Asthma Clinic (CHOB), Friday morning and
- Rheumatology Clinic (CHOB), Friday afternoon
Other features of the training programs include:
- Core Lecture Series for Fellows (weekly)
- Morning Report (bi-monthly)
- Department of Medicine Grand Round Series (three-four three hour conferences per year)
- Didactic asthma/allergy conferences (weekly during academic year)
- Immunology Case Conference (third Monday each month during academic year)
- Allergy/Immunology Journal Club (weekly)
- Annual Weed Walk (one full day each year)
- Annual Allergy/Immunology Adult/Pediatric Conference (two and one-half days each year)
- Buffalo Allergy Society Meeting (monthly)
- Allergy Case Conference (bi-monthly)
- Autoimmune Disease Case Conference (weekly)
- Clinical/Basic Immunology Review Seminars (weekly)
- Clinical Conference/Medicine (weekly)
Fellows are provided with a structured research experience sufficient to result in an understanding of the basic principles of study design, performance, analysis and reporting of the assigned area of investigation. Some of the areas of investigation include/have included:
- Markers of immunotolerance in transplant rejection
- Autoimmune thyroid disease and chronic urticaria
- Epidemiology and management of childhood localized
- Scleroderma
- Atrovent and Its use in prevention of gastroesophageal reflux induced bronchospasm
- Immunologic markers to distinguish asymptomatic bacteria from urinary tract infection in children with meningomyelocele
- Functional, physiologic and immunologic outcomes of quantitative progressive exercise rehabilitation of the lower extremities in juvenile arthritis: a pilot study
- Perinatal HIV infections: prevention of CNS pathology
- Suppression of tumor immunity by opioids
- Analysis of IL-14 production by a burkitts lymphoma cell line
- Evaluation of immunologic tolerance in solid organ transplantation
- T Cell activation in HIV-1 reverse transcription and integration retroviral integration and activation events
- Crystallization of human monoclonal lambda light chain (Immunoglobulin) protein that binds to anti-human IgE antibody (variable region) for eventual x-ray crystallographic analysis of structure-function relationships
- Cocaine-associated encephalopathy in AIDS
- Bioflavonoids and oral cancer: studies on apoptosis
- Therapeutic trial (open) of intravenous immune serum globulin in chronic sinusitis in children
- Effect of perflorocarbon on animal Model of asthma
- Effects of retinoids on B-cell immunoglobulins and cytokine production
Current Fellows-in-Training:
- Yongxin Chen, M.D., Clinical Assistant Instructor
- Vylma Velazquez, M.D.., Clinical Assistant Instructor
- Ala'ddin Kandeel, M.D., Clinical Assistant Instructor
- Wilowan Watewai, M.D., Clinical Assistant Instructor