[1] NIAID has on-campus laboratories in Maryland and Hamilton, Montana, and funds research conducted by scientists at institutions in the United States and throughout the world.

[3] Officials of the Marine Hospital Service in New York decided to open a research laboratory to study the link between microscopic organisms and infectious diseases.

"[4] Kinyoun's lab was renamed the Hygienic Laboratory in 1891 and moved to Washington, D.C., where Congress authorized it to investigate "infectious and contagious diseases and matters pertaining to the public health.

In 1994, a study co-sponsored by NIAID demonstrated that the drug AZT, given to HIV-infected women who had little or no prior antiretroviral therapy (ART), reduced the risk of MTCT by two-thirds.

[13] In 1999, an NIAID-funded study in Uganda found that two oral doses of the inexpensive drug nevirapine—one given to HIV-infected mothers at the onset of labor and another to their infants soon after birth—reduced MTCT by half when compared with a similar course of AZT.

Subsequent clinical trials, including some funded by NIAID, showed that AIDS drugs also can reduce the risk of MTCT through breast milk.

These and other studies have led to World Health Organization recommendations that can help prevent MTCT while allowing women in resource-limited settings to breastfeed their infants safely.

[16] A draft of the 2024 update was widely circulated, to incorporate feedback from community groups[16] and was published in April 2024[16] using person-first language,[17] but was removed from the NIAID website shortly after the second inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2025,[18] with some commentators suggesting this is as a result of language in the guide around transgender and gender nonconforming people being in contravention of President Trump's executive order "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government".