ISB Named Winner of 2024-2025 Amazon Web Services IMAGINE Grant for Nonprofits

SEATTLE — The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) today announced it has been selected as a winner of the 2024 Amazon Web Services (AWS) IMAGINE Grant, a public grant opportunity open to registered charities in the United Kingdom and Ireland and registered 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the United States who are using technology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. The grant will support ISB’s continued development of My Digital Gut, an online decision-support platform that will help make microbiome-informed nutrition and healthcare personalized, predictive, and preventive. 

Now in its seventh year, the AWS IMAGINE Grant provides vital resources to nonprofit organizations looking to deploy cloud technology as a central tool to achieve mission goals. As part of the program, AWS seeks proposals for big ideas on how to leverage cloud technology in new and innovative ways to accelerate impact in local and global communities.

ISB was named a winner in the Momentum to Modernize category, which recognizes foundational technology projects. ISB will receive $50,000 in unrestricted funding, $5,000 in AWS Promotional Credits, and project implementation support. Proposals were judged on several factors including the innovative and unique nature of the project, impact on mission-critical goals, and clearly defined outcomes and milestones.

My Digital Gut is designed to be an essential tool that enables physicians and their patients to identify life-changing precision interventions. My Digital Gut was conceived in the lab of ISB Associate Professor Sean Gibbons, PhD. Following initial validation of their technology, Gibbons and his colleagues are planning a clinical trial to test whether or not personalized interventions are better at improving cardiometabolic health than placebo or standard-of-care nutritional interventions. My Digital Gut will serve as a decision support system for researchers and clinicians to deploy personalized, microbiome-informed nutritional interventions in these clinical trials.

Gibbons envisions individuals using My Digital Gut as a personalized health assistant, where a person’s data will be uploaded to the My Digital Gut tool. Then, the individual will be shown their unique “digital twin” – an avatar representing the metabolic capacity of their microbiota in the context of a given dietary intake. Potential applications of this interface are to digitally test the effects of varying diets – Mediterranean vs. Atkins, for example – or the effects of different prebiotic and probiotic interventions on the production of health-relevant microbial metabolites.

“We are honored to receive this generous award from AWS, which will help us to deploy our My Digital Gut prototype and enable the next phase of validation work in human trials,” Gibbons said.

“At AWS, we’re inspired by the nonprofit sector’s unwavering commitment to preserving the dignity and health of people and our planet,” said Allyson Fryhoff, managing director of nonprofit and nonprofit health at AWS. “Our Imagine Grant winners are pioneering groundbreaking, technology-driven approaches that will amplify their mission impact and build a more equitable and compassionate world. We are thrilled to work alongside these organizations, helping them leverage the transformative capabilities of the AWS Cloud to bring these projects to life.”

Since the launch of the IMAGINE Grant program in 2018, AWS has awarded over $14 million in unrestricted funds, AWS Promotional Credits, and expert technical guidance to over 130 nonprofit organizations in support of their technology-driven goals. Previous winners are currently using AWS services to tackle critical challenges such as eliminating barriers to food security, improving maternal health outcomes, helping millions access clean and safe drinking water globally, tackling rare disease research, and more.

Over 85,000 nonprofit organizations worldwide use AWS to increase their impact and advance mission goals. Through multiple programs tailored specifically to the nonprofit community, AWS enables nonprofits of all sizes to overcome barriers to technology adoption, while enhancing the scale, performance, and capabilities of mission operations.

Learn more about My Digital Gut by watching the video below.