Augusta University Research Institute, Inc.

Augusta University Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Georgia Health Sciences, is a non-profit research subsidiary of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia that operates as a prime federal recipient and contractor providing biomedical research services, advanced laboratory infrastructure, and animal research support to the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other federal agencies.

The institute's primary role is research funding recipient and prime contractor on NIH grants and VA contracts. AURI functions entirely as a prime or recipient entity across its federal footprint—the organization holds no subcontractor relationships under other primes and does not serve as a sub-recipient on grants from other institutions. This distinction matters competitively: AURI brings principal investigator relationships and grant authorship directly into teaming arrangements, not supplemental laboratory or data-services capacity.

AURI's customer concentration is heavily skewed toward biomedical research funding. The Department of Health and Human Services' National Institutes of Health dominates the award count and dollar value, with 245 total awards across the NIH system. Within NIH, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (121 awards), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (61 awards), the National Institute on Aging (47 awards), and the National Cancer Institute (51 awards, $123 thousand combined potential value) anchor the portfolio. The Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network 4 represents the second-largest customer by potential-value share, with 38 awards valued at $2.6 million, principally animal laboratory and core services delivered under a single-award indefinite-delivery contract ($667,775 ceiling through June 2028). The concentration of small research grants and modest potential-value figures across the portfolio reflects AURI's posture as a research institution recipient rather than a services contractor: most awards are project grants for scientific investigation rather than procurements for defined deliverables.

The institute's research capability portfolio reflects its identity as an academic research organization embedded within a university. Recent prime grant awards include $646,620 (National Institute on Aging, Aging Research program, CFDA 93.866) for longitudinal research on early-life psychosocial stress and accelerated biological aging; $555,000 (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, CFDA 93.853) for optogenetic assay development to study intracellular transport in neurodevelopmental disease; $495,229 (National Eye Institute, Vision Research program, CFDA 93.867) for molecular subtyping of dry eye disease using machine learning; and $766,667 (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, CFDA 93.837) for research into posttranslational control of vascular smooth muscle cell identity in coronary artery disease. The grant abstracts signal fundamental and translational biomedical investigation across neuroscience, cardiovascular biology, aging mechanisms, ophthalmology, and metabolic disease—standard academic research domains. On the contract side, AURI delivers animal laboratory and core scientific services to the VA on a cost-no-fee basis, with task orders under the VISN 4 IDIQ ranging from roughly $2,000 to $97,000 and indexed to specific animal care, laboratory service, and specialized research support activities. An Army Southern Command cyber-range contract ($91,562, awarded April 2025) represents anomalous scope outside the research footprint and likely reflects a one-off institutional collaboration rather than a sustained capability line.

Activity has grown materially over the past five years. Award counts per year show 44 awards in 2022, climbing to 77 in 2023, 103 in 2024, and 69 in 2025 (with 28 recorded in the first two weeks of 2026). The combined potential value across all 1,010 awards in the source is $19.6 million, though obligated dollars ($1.46 billion) far exceed potential value—a pattern consistent with research grants carrying multi-year funding cycles where earlier tranches have been obligated while potential-value ceilings remain anchored to original award amounts. Ninety-five awards reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, with combined potential value of $202 thousand; recompete exposure is modest relative to the overall portfolio size, reflecting the grant-dominant model where funding cycles are managed at the NIH program level rather than through individual-award recompetes.

The institute receives sub-recipient funding from several leading academic medical centers and research universities. Recent sub-award relationships include participation in the University of Kentucky Research Foundation's work on colorectal cancer epidemiology and health equity (subaward awarded May 2026, with AURI PI responsible for data request, IRB coordination, and patient recruitment in Georgia); Georgia State University's projects on intellectual and developmental disability health outcomes and metabolic disease mechanisms (multiple subawards across 2024–2026); and Emory University's Cystic Fibrosis Center of Excellence, APOL1 kidney transplant outcomes network, and disaster response system work (subawards 2024–2025). AURI also subcontracts from Vanderbilt University on neurostimulation research, contributes to the TEDDY (Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young) longitudinal cohort at the University of South Florida, and participates in multi-institutional consortia led by Baylor College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, and others. These relationships signal AURI's role as a distributed research infrastructure provider—contributing lab facilities, regulatory and administrative capacity (IRB, HIPAA compliance), participant recruitment, and local data management to large consortial or NIH-coordinated studies rather than serving as a subcontractor in the procurement sense.

AURI holds a single-award indefinite-delivery contract with the VA Veterans Integrated Service Network 4 for animal laboratory and core services (contract ceiling $667,775, through June 2028, no set-aside). This vehicle is the source of the largest grouped revenue within the contract footprint. Task orders issued under the contract have ranged from $938 to $96,966.53, with recent orders (July 2026) valued at $62,250, $66,938.56, $26,106, and $15,145 for animal laboratory support and core research services. Performance is cost-no-fee and conducted at AURI's Augusta, Georgia facilities.

The federal grant footprint dominates by both award count and organizational mission. AURI serves as prime recipient on 879 awards (87% of total) across NIH components, the Department of Defense Medical Research Development program, the National Science Foundation, and other federal research agencies. NIH project grants for basic and translational research in cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, cancer, metabolic disorders, and aging mechanisms represent the core portfolio. AURI also serves as sub-recipient on 131 awards (13%) under prime grantees at Emory, Georgia State, the University of Kentucky, and others—a signal of institutional participation in large consortial or center-focused awards rather than independent sub-award procurement.

AURI is headquartered in Augusta, Georgia at 1120 15th Street and operates as a subsidiary of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. The organization is tax-exempt and structured as a corporate entity within the state educational system. The institute competes in full-and-open federal research competitions, with no SBA set-asides or socioeconomic designations recorded in the source data.