Vaccine Study Center, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, California Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, California Department of Health Systems Science, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Pasadena, CA USA
Nicola Klein, MD, PhD is a board-certified Pediatrician, Director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center since 2006 and a Research Scientist III (rank equivalent to Professor) at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. She received her medical degree and her doctorate in Biochemistry as part of the NIH-funded Medical Scientist Training Program at New York University School of Medicine, completed her residency in Pediatrics at the Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Center for Disease Control (CDC)-sponsored Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network Vaccine Safety Fellowship at Stanford.
Her research has focused on vaccine safety and effectiveness, genetics of vaccine responses, vaccine safety among special populations and the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases. She is principal investigator (PI) for the CDC-sponsored Vaccine Safety Datalink Project and CISA Network and has led many vaccine safety studies, including describing the risk for febrile seizures following the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella vaccine separately among 1-2 year old and among 4-6 year olds, and an FDA-sponsored case-control genome wide association study examining genes associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures in children following measles-containing vaccines. She also lead a National Vaccine Program Office-sponsored study identifying genetic, immunologic and clinical factors predisposing children to fever after measles-containing vaccines. She is also PI on numerous vaccine clinical trials enrolling infants, children, adolescents and adults, as well as observational studies investigating the effectiveness of many vaccines, including acellular pertussis, the recombinant zoster, 13-valent pneumococcal and influenza vaccines.