Institute For Systems Biology

Institute For Systems Biology, a Seattle-based nonprofit research organization, operates as a prime recipient of federal grants and contracts and as a subcontractor on research collaborations, conducting systems biology research spanning multi-omics data integration, computational modeling, and biomedical data analytics for the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Department of Defense. The Institute does not hold a federal contract vehicle (IDIQ, GWAC, or BPA) and competes predominantly full-and-open without set-aside designations.

The Institute's federal funding footprint is heavily weighted toward research and development in biotechnology and life sciences. Recent prime contract work includes a $643,750 Firm-Fixed-Price contract awarded by the Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity in September 2022 to develop objective screening tools for detecting comorbidities associated with acute stress response and post-traumatic stress disorder using global proteomic analysis. Its grant portfolio spans NIH institutes and NSF directorates: the National Cancer Institute awarded the Institute $1.585 million in September 2026 (CFDA 47.074, Division of Environmental Biology) to investigate how spatial differentiation of ecotypes enhances microbial mutualism and cooperation; the National Cancer Institute awarded $555,592 in September 2026 (CFDA 93.393, Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) to develop AI-driven infrastructure for analyzing cancer datasets and identifying cancer risk factors through spatial search tools; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded $235,000 in August 2026 (CFDA 93.855, Project Grant R21AI202154) to develop dual single-cell transcriptomics technology measuring both host and pathogen gene expression in infected cells; the National Institute on Aging awarded $1.345 million in July 2026 (CFDA 93.866, Aging Research) to investigate sex-specific determinants of frailty using multi-omic and mouse model approaches; and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases awarded $940,934 in June 2026 (CFDA 93.855) to develop phosphopeptide "superbinders" for comprehensive phosphoproteomic analysis of bacterial pathogens.

Customer concentration is steep and research-agency driven. The top five funding entities account for 53% of recent awards: the National Institutes of Health overall (27 awards), the National Cancer Institute (23 awards, $12.6 million combined potential value), the National Science Foundation (22 awards), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (22 awards), and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (10 awards). By potential value, the distribution skews toward NIAID—three awards total $23.6 million, anchoring the top customer slot despite lower award count. The Department of Health and Human Services (through NIH subdivisions) and NSF dominate the customer base; the Department of the Army Medical Command appears as a secondary but smaller contributor (6 awards, $1.8 million). The Institute commands 73% of recent awards as a prime recipient or prime grantee, with 27% flowing through subcontractor roles under universities and research institutions.

The Institute operates predominantly in prime-recipient grant research across multiple NIH institutes and NSF programs, with limited federal service-contract reporting. Service Contract Inventory data spanning FY2022–FY2025 shows only 3 SCI records, all as named subcontractor engagements (0 prime SCI contracts), reflecting roughly 4.0–5.3 FTEs delivered across those service contracts—an indicator that the Institute's federal engagement is concentrated in grants and research contracts rather than in labor-hour service contracts above the SCI reporting threshold. This profile contrasts sharply with federal IT or professional-services contractors; the Institute is fundamentally a research-grant-driven organization.

Recent grant sub-award roles position the Institute as a data-integration and systems-biology collaborator under prime recipients including Seattle Children's Hospital, University of Washington, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and Sage Bionetworks. Named sub-award work includes multi-omics data integration on cystic fibrosis microbiota and gastrointestinal inflammation (Seattle Children's Hospital prime); computational methods for tumor microenvironment analysis in the Human Tumor Atlas Network (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute prime, with ISB contributing data standards and portal development); and machine-learning approaches for drug-target identification in myelodysplastic syndrome (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center prime). The Institute's sub-award footprint reflects its role as a specialized analytical and computational resource layered into larger research consortia rather than as a deliverer of standalone operational services.

Activity has held steady through the past five years—9 awards in 2022 to 19 in 2024, then 18 in 2025 and 10 in 2026 (partial-year data)—with thirteen awards completing within the next twenty-four months and therefore facing recompete or renewal. The Institute's recent award trajectory and concentration in NIH grant funding position it as a core participant in biomedical research infrastructure rather than as a federal contractor competing for IT modernization or traditional service-contract work.