To the Editor:

Immunology in the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) intramural research program is widely dispersed among over a dozen institutes and sites in Maryland, Montana and North Carolina. Despite this, we have developed strong intramural immunology interest groups that sponsor seminars, e-mail lists and an annual retreat. To have a better 'front door' for immunology at the NIH, the immunology interest group steering committee has created a website and a searchable intramural faculty database listing more than 150 laboratories in the NIH and US Food and Drug Administration intramural programs, at http://www.immunology.nih.gov. The website also has links to our weekly NIH immunology seminars, which feature NIH and guest faculty and some of our senior fellows. These lectures are webcast live and archived for later viewing. There is a brief history of the more than 100 years of intramural NIH research in immunology and infectious diseases, as well as listings of training programs and staff and faculty positions. Listings in the faculty database link directly to laboratory homepages for easy access to detailed research descriptions, publications and contact information. We hope this website will help researchers and prospective trainees looking for their areas of interest within the intramural immunology community, and will foster future collaborations and scientific interchange. We would also like to thank the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for hosting the website.