The division of endocrinology and diabetes at Nemours Children's Health – Jacksonville has a strong background in research and has a wide variety of projects active at any given time, all funded by NIH, private foundations and industry. Training has a special focus on clinical research, with fellows functioning as integral members of the research team. Fellows have genuine opportunities for fellow initiated projects, reviewed and funded through the Nemours Foundation and with close mentorship. The goals include presenting at national or international meetings and manuscript preparation for publication. With the available resources and ongoing projects, fellows are exposed to a wide range of endocrine research topics including, but not limited to diabetes (pathophysiology and therapeutics), disorders of growth and puberty and thyroid. Fellows also get exposed to a variety of translationally-relevant techniques in the design, submission, implementation and execution of research proposals. The program provides increasing percentage of protected research time throughout the 3 years of training.

Research Resources

Clinical Research Center

Wolfson Children’s Hospital has a well-equipped dedicated clinical research center staffed with experienced specialty trained nurses. This unit allows the conduct of sophisticated and complex studies involving frequently sampled blood and other body fluids in children and phase I-III drug or device studies, we have access to the physical therapy department equipment in close geographic proximity. We have support from research dieticians and a Ph.D. level physical therapist. These resources allow for performance of complex endocrine and metabolic studies.

Bone Mineral Density Lab

A DXA scanner is owned by the Nemours research programs. It is located at Wolfson Children's Hospital and is staffed by trained radiation technologists with extensive experience in bone densitometry and body composition. This lab provides fellows the unique exposure to reading and interpreting DXAs for research and clinical applications, a skill often tied to diagnostic radiology, but commonly run by endocrinologists.

Biochemical Analysis, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Laboratory

This laboratory has a whole dedicated floor at Nemours Children's Health, Jacksonville. The lab is well equipped and is staffed with full time Ph.D. level researchers and biochemists as well as technicians. Collaboration with Wolfson Children’s Hospital, University of Florida Gainesville and Mayo Clinic allows us to expand the breadth of molecular and genetic studies can be done.