Several prominent geographers who do research on health and disease, led by the AAG, are working collaboratively with several institutes at NIH to explore establishing a spatial analysis and GIS infrastructure that would be cross-institute and cross-center at NIH. UW Professor of Geography and Epidemiology Jonathan Mayer is one of the 5 leaders of this group. NIH provides most of the funding for biomedical research in the US. The first conference of NIH officers, extramural researchers, and intramural researchers from NIH was held on Feb. 22-23 in Rockville, MD. The AAG has submitted a grant to NIH to continue these discussions with 3 further conferences around specific themes.