The LSHTM is an independent academic institute, which has an internationally excellent reputation in public health and tropical medicine. It is a leading postgraduate medical institution in Europe and is Britain’s national school of public health. A special strength of the School’s research is its multi-disciplinary nature: leading researchers have backgrounds in public health medicine, epidemiology, clinical medicine, infectious diseases, chemotherapy, biochemistry, immunology, genetics, molecular biology, entomology, statistics, demography, health economics, public health engineering, etc. Within LSHTM, The Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases encompasses all of the laboratory-based research in the School as well as that on the clinical and epidemiological aspects of infectious and tropical diseases (400 staff). The range of disciplines represented in the department is very broad and inter-disciplinary research is a feature of much of our activity. The spectrum of diseases studied is wide and there are major research groups with a focus on malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, vaccine development and evaluation, and vector biology and disease control. The Department is organised into five large research units comprising: Pathogen Molecular Biology, Immunology, Disease Control and Vector Biology, Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Clinical Research. There is close interaction between scientists in different research teams. The Department has strong overseas links, which provide a basis for field studies and international collaborations in developed and developing countries. (Brendan Wren)