Staff Clinician

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a major research component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services, is inviting applications for a  Staff Clinician in the Clinical Research Branch (CRB), Division of Intramural Research (DIR) at the NIEHS campus in Research Triangle Park, NC to serve as Medical Director of the Clinical Research Unit (CRU) and Director of Clinical Operations for the NIEHS Personalized Environment and Genes Study (PEGS). The NIH formalized the concept of Staff Clinician as an intramural research appointment in 1993 reflecting the importance of multidisciplinary research teams. NIH Staff Clinicians possess highly specialized and superb clinical and clinical research skills and expertise and perform critical functions as key members of a research team whose project goals are defined by a Principal Investigator. Staff Clinicians may also be approved for appointment as Assistant or Associate Research Physician which meet similar requirement for Assistant or Associate Professor at academic institutions. Senior Research Physicians would be equivalent to Professor in a Clinical Tract at academic institutions. 

The CRU is a fully staffed, stand-alone facility that sees over 1,000 research participants a year. As Medical Director of the CRU, the successful candidate will collaborate with a strong cadre of basic researchers to develop and implement translational research at the NIEHS CRU, serving as the protocol’s Principal Investigator as needed; will advise and assist clinical researchers in the development and performance of their research protocols; will direct the NIEHS CRU core staff (including nursing, respiratory therapy, phlebotomy, front office, laboratory, data management and research assistant staff); and will assist the NIEHS Clinical Director in developing and implementing plans for programmatic growth of the NIEHS CRU. Active CRU-based studies are shown at: https://joinastudy.niehs.nih.gov/.

The incumbent will also serve as Director of Clinical Operations for the Personalized Environment and Genes Study (PEGS). PEGS is a large cohort of over 19,000 participants, initiated in 2002 to study interaction between genes, the environment and health. PEGS offers outstanding research opportunities to intramural scientists and extramural collaborators interested in personalized environmental medicine. The position involves oversight of all study participant-facing activities including recruitment, annual re-contact, recall for additional studies, regular communication with participants and human studies regulatory activities in addition to overseeing relevant CRU-based studies and interfacing with academic health care systems. Information on PEGS, formerly known as the ‘EPR,’ can be found at: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/clinical/studies/pegs/index.cfm. It is expected that the successful candidate will be able to collaborate broadly on projects utilizing the CRU and/or the PEGS cohort. 

The successful candidate will require evidence of strong leadership skills and significant experience in patient-oriented research, defined as research that requires direct interaction with human subjects. The individual will have a track record of national presentations and publications in respected journals in their field. Research areas may include understanding the mechanisms of human disease, genotype-phenotype studies, therapeutic interventions, and/or clinical trials. 

The NIH is the premier biomedical research center for the world. Its 27 institutes and centers employ more than 21,000 employees doing a vast array of jobs, all supporting efforts for a healthy nation. For information about the NIH mission, goals and institutes and centers, visit https://www.nih.gov/about-nih.

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