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Mission

The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. For more than 60 years, NIAID research has led to new therapies, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and other technologies that have improved the health of millions of people in the United States and around the world. NIAID has a unique mandate, which requires the Institute to respond to emerging public health threats. Toward this end, NIAID manages a complex and diverse research portfolio that aims to do the following:

  • Expand the breadth and depth of knowledge in all areas of infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases
  • Develop flexible domestic and international research capacities to respond appropriately to emerging and re-emerging disease threats at home and abroad

Key research areas include newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza, HIV/AIDS, biodefense, and immune-mediated diseases including asthma and allergy.

Interest in Diversity

NIAID is committed to promoting diversity in its scientific portfolio and in the biomedical research workforce through numerous programs that address the training, funding, and infrastructure support of the next generation of scientists and clinicians from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, individuals with disabilities, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. By advancing diversity through NIAID individual and institutional programs, we can facilitate a balanced approach to establishing research priorities; respond appropriately to emerging and re-emerging public health threats; and foster opportunities to diagnose and treat many of the world’s most intractable and widespread diseases. NIAID performs numerous outreach activities to engage and recruit students, postdoctoral fellows, and early stage investigators from underrepresented backgrounds interested in exploring careers in biomedical research.

Diversity-Targeted Programs
Director's Statement
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
Director's Statement
NIAID has a longstanding commitment to promoting diversity in the scientific workforce. Our work has global urgency, requiring the sharpest minds to come together to ask and answer the most compelling scientific questions. There is no doubt that the best thinking emerges when people with different perspectives work together toward a common goal. I encourage our scientists and grantees to continually assess the diversity of their laboratories and intensify their efforts to recruit, retain, and support talented scientists from underrepresented groups. Enhancing diversity advances science.