The Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases (IID) was formed in 1997 when the Departments of Cancer Biology (CB), Molecular and Cellular Toxicology (MCT), and Tropical Public Health (TPH) merged and formed two new departments, IID and the Department of Cancer Cell Biology (CCB). The merger was designed to streamline areas in which research methods had become similar. At the time of the merger, Max Essex, said "twenty years ago the approaches used in the study of parasitic diseases, as in the Department of Tropical Public Health, were very different from the approaches used in virology. Over time, the methods and strategies have become very much the same. We're all trying to understand how and why viruses or bacteria or parasitic organisms or other infectious agents cause disease and epidemics, why epidemics spread the way they do, and what we can do to check that spread."
Research in our 15 labs is focused on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, parasitology and immunology.
IID comprises 26 faculty members, over 100 research and lab staff, and about 30 administrative staff.