St. Jude opens faculty search in pediatric HIV and translational medicine
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is recruiting an Assistant or Associate Faculty Member for its Division of HIV and Translational Medicine within the Department of Infectious Diseases in Memphis, Tennessee. The appointment is aimed at physicians who can bridge bedside care, early-stage research, and the infrastructure needed to move pediatric infectious-disease science into practical testing.
The opening is centered on two linked missions: HIV medicine and translational work in vaccine and drug development for pediatric infectious diseases. In practice, that means the physician-scientist in this role would help care for children and youth living with HIV while also helping design or execute research studies supported by institutional funds, external grants, NIH consortium activity, or pharmaceutical sponsorship.
This is not a narrow clinical post. It is a hybrid role built for someone who can move between outpatient HIV care, research planning, and the operational demands of an expanding translational program.
A role built around care, research, and trial infrastructure
The department says the selected faculty member will contribute to the growth of the Infectious Disease Translational Trials Center, a facility intended to support early-stage vaccine and drug development. The center grew out of St. Jude’s prior Translational Trials Unit, which historically sat alongside the HIV clinical program and helped connect institutional discoveries to human studies.
A major part of the institutional logic is speed. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, the trials unit shifted rapidly into large-scale, community-based vaccine studies. That experience appears to have accelerated the creation of the newer Translational Trials Center adjacent to campus, with a strategy focused on expanding translational research opportunities, including studies involving healthy volunteers from the surrounding community.
For a pediatric infectious-disease program, that kind of facility matters because early-phase vaccine and drug development requires more than scientific ideas. It needs recruitment pathways, clinical research operations, regulatory discipline, and a setting that can support iterative testing without losing sight of patient safety.
HIV care from birth through young adulthood
St. Jude describes an HIV clinical program that cares for patients from birth through age 24 in a multidisciplinary outpatient clinic with an on-site specialty pharmacy. The age range is notable. Pediatric HIV care does not end with infancy or adolescence; it demands continuity through developmental stages that bring changing adherence patterns, transition challenges, and shifting family structures.
The program also emphasizes long-standing community partnerships. A coalition of more than 25 community partners works toward optimizing HIV prevention and treatment, while supporting health literacy and research literacy among children, youth, and families. That community-facing structure is not a cosmetic addition to the clinic model. In HIV medicine, trust, access, and continuity frequently determine whether patients remain engaged in care and whether research participation is ethically and operationally feasible.
St. Jude’s description points to a program that has attempted to make clinical care and research part of the same ecosystem rather than separate tracks.
The academic profile St. Jude wants
Candidates are expected to have an MD/DO or MD/PhD with residency training in Pediatrics or Internal Medicine-Pediatrics. The institution is looking for physicians with a strong record of caring for children and youth, along with a demonstrated interest in clinical research.
The recruitment language also places substantial weight on mentoring, interdisciplinary collaboration, and inclusive training. Those expectations are consistent with a faculty post that will likely interact with trainees, research staff, community partners, and external collaborators. A clinician who joins this division will need to function across those settings without losing coherence in either patient care or scientific execution.
Evidence of potential or achievement in securing extramural funding is listed as a requirement. In translational medicine, that expectation is more than an administrative preference. A faculty member whose work depends on outside support must be able to frame questions that are fundable, feasible, and aligned with the next step in the development pipeline.
Why the translational angle carries weight
The division’s stated focus on vaccine development, drug development, and even HIV cure research places the opening squarely in the part of infectious diseases where laboratory insight and human experimentation intersect. Cure research in HIV remains among the most scientifically demanding areas in medicine because persistent reservoirs, immune evasion, and the long timescale of viral control make definitive eradication exceptionally difficult.
A faculty member in this space would be expected to contribute to research that is early stage, highly collaborative, and likely dependent on careful patient selection and rigorous protocol design. At the same time, the clinical side of the role would keep the work anchored in routine care for children and young adults living with HIV, where adherence, antiretroviral management, and long-term follow-up remain central.
The program’s combination of outpatient HIV care, translational trials, and a GMP facility gives the post an unusual breadth. Few faculty jobs in pediatrics offer the same direct line from clinic to first-in-human development work.
A search aimed at an early- to mid-career builder
St. Jude frames the expansion of the Translational Trials Center as a strategic career opportunity for an early- or mid-career clinical researcher. The language suggests an institution looking for someone who can grow with the program rather than simply occupy a predefined slot.
This matters because center-building roles carry a different kind of pressure than established senior posts. The faculty member will likely help shape workflows, partnerships, and the research portfolio itself. In a field like pediatric HIV, where patient populations are specialized and research pipelines can be constrained by recruitment and regulatory complexity, the ability to help build durable infrastructure is often as important as publication history.
The institution also indicates that affiliate appointments may be explored with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, the local health department, and St. Jude Graduate School. Those options could widen opportunities for clinical care, teaching, and collaborative research, though the core role remains grounded in the infectious-diseases division.
Applications are being reviewed immediately and will continue until the position is filled. For candidates with the right mix of clinical training, research ambition, and interest in pediatric HIV, the opening is positioned as a direct route into a program that aims to link patient care, translational science, and community engagement in one academic framework.