Seattle Children's Hospital

Seattle Children's Hospital, doing business as Seattle Children's Research Institute, is a non-profit tax-exempt hospital and research organization headquartered in Seattle, Washington that operates as a federal grant recipient and contract subcontractor, delivering biomedical and clinical research services across infectious disease, immunology, oncology, pediatric health outcomes, and developmental biology. The organization receives the vast majority of its federal funding through National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants rather than contracts, making it a research recipient institution rather than a service contractor to federal agencies.

Seattle Children's Research Institute competes predominantly in full-and-open federal grant programs administered by NIH institutes and centers. The organization does not hold SBA set-aside certifications and does not compete under 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOSB, WOSB, or other socioeconomic set-asides. Prime federal awards account for 63% of the organization's federal footprint; the remaining 37% consists of subcontract and sub-grant awards where the organization delivers specialized research services to other prime recipients and prime grantees.

NIH funding dominates the customer concentration. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) leads by far, funding 224 awards with $196.8 million in combined potential value, representing a substantial portion of the organization's research portfolio. Other major NIH customers include the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (92 awards), the National Cancer Institute (105 awards), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (85 awards), and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Recent awards span structural biology of infectious disease (NIAID Centers for Research on Structural Biology), vaccine development and immunology, cancer immunotherapy and precision oncology, pediatric pulmonary and cardiovascular research, neurodevelopmental disorders, and maternal-child health outcomes.

Representative prime grant work illustrates the research scope: a $32.9 million five-year cost-plus-no-fee NIAID definitive contract (September 2022 through August 2027) supports scientific research at the Centers for Research on Structural Biology of Infectious Diseases, employing X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine protein structures from NIAID Category A–C pathogens and emerging infectious disease agents, with work performed at Seattle Children's Research Institute and distributed across subcontractors including the University of Washington, University of Kansas Center for Research, Washington State University, Dartmouth College, and Washington University in St. Louis. A $3.61 million NIAID research award (July 2025 through June 2029) investigates hyaluronidase-mediated Group B Streptococci disease mechanisms during pregnancy and in newborns. A $2.096 million NIGMS award (May 2026 through April 2030) develops an AI-driven platform for generating conditionally stable nanobodies for intracellular detection and protein manipulation, with deliverables including open-source bioinformatics tools and annotated nanobody variant datasets. A $3.27 million National Human Genome Research Institute award (September 2025 through June 2029) evaluates how newborn whole genome sequencing facilitates access to federally-supported Part C Early Intervention developmental services for infants diagnosed with rare genetic conditions, with five sub-awardees including Columbia University Health Sciences Division, Case Western Reserve University, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Research Triangle Institute, and the University of Washington.

Service Contract Inventory data reflects $96.4 million in SCI-reportable invoiced revenue across FY2022–FY2025 on prime contracts above the $150,000 reporting threshold. The SCI dataset shows a workforce trajectory ranging from 21.6 FTEs in FY2022 to 26.3 FTEs in FY2025 across federal services contracts captured in SCI. On federal services contracts captured in SCI, median government-paid rates ran around $123/hr, with rates spanning from approximately $109/hr at the 10th percentile to $241/hr for senior labor at the 90th percentile. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed approximately 47% of total contractor hours, with 134 named subcontractors engaged across the prime contract portfolio. This pattern indicates that Seattle Children's Research Institute operates as both a prime performer of federal research and a significant coordinator of distributed subcontractor networks, assembling teams of regional and national academic institutions and research centers to execute complex, multi-site research programs.

The organization faces a substantial recompete cliff: 107 awards with combined potential value of $171.5 million reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating both renewal opportunity and competitive exposure. Awards per year show volatility (71 in 2023, 182 in 2024, 189 in 2025, 80 in 2026, 1 in 2027 as of the source snapshot date of October 2026), reflecting the episodic timing of NIH grant cycles and the project-based structure of federal research funding. The organization's federal footprint encompasses 70 distinct customer agencies; however, NIH and its constituent institutes dominate, accounting for the overwhelming majority of award count and dollar value. Seattle Children's Research Institute operates as a research recipient institution anchored in pediatric health science, biomedical innovation, and translational research partnerships with academic medical centers, national laboratories, and other non-profit research organizations across the United States.