The IWGMT was founded more than 20 years ago, largely by Dr. Lawrence Wayne. It is comprised of members of the international community interested in mycobacterial taxonomy. Its members have a broad range of clinical and laboratory interests from IS6110 fingerprinting to clinical mycobacteriology. Over the years some 16 meetings have been held, with the first meeting in 1969 in Los Angeles with Dr.Wayne as the host, and the last one held in Lisbon in 1998. The meetings are held every two years, and one of the members usually acts as a host and helps with local arrangements. The small nature of the meetings are conducive to wonderful exchanges of ideas, and are a superb way to become better acquainted with others interested in taxonomic type studies. Typical topics include HPLC, 16S-RNA sequencing,, phenotypic studies, susceptibility studies, results of collaborative studies suggested and organized at earlier meetings. The goal of the IWGMT is to organize polyphasic studies (i.e., those that involve chemotaxonomic, phenetic, and semantide studies) to better understand and characterize members of the family of mycobacteriacea. A time and place for the year 2,000 meeting has not been set. Current chairpersons for the IWGMT are : Dr. Tom Shinnick Mail Stop G-35 Center for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Road Atlanta GA 30333 Email: tms@ciccas1.cdc.em.gov Dr. Francoise Portaels Mycobacteriology Unit Institute of Tropical Medicine Prince Leopold Nationalestraat 155 B2000 Antwerpen Belgium Email: portaels@itg.be