The Centre was founded in 1979, as the Academic Department of Genitourinary Medicine, with the creation of the Duncan Guthrie Chair, the first in this speciality in the world. It is based in the Mortimer Market Centre, where it shares accommodation with the largest clinic for sexual health and HIV disease in Europe. Since then, the Centre has expanded steadily and is now staffed by a multidisciplinary team of epidemiologists, clinicians, statisticians and behavioural scientists examining a wide range of issues relating to sexual health and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and viral hepatitis.