This focus is reflective of JCU's strategic commitment to "Creating a brighter future for life in the tropics worldwide through graduates and discoveries that make a difference".

In early 2012, AITHM received a commitment of $42.12 million from the Queensland Government to build essential infrastructure and bolster key research projects.

AITHM now has research facilities on both the Townsville and Cairns campuses of James Cook University and on Thursday Island, the main commercial and administrative hub of the Torres Strait.

[4] Before it was subsumed into the then Commonwealth Department of Health in 1921,[5] the Institute made a significant contribution to understandings about how Europeans could live in and adapt to tropical Australia.

[6] The Institute's first director was Dr Anton Breinl, who had previously worked as a medical scientist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.