AWS and National Institutes of Health Collaborate to Accelerate Discoveries with STRIDES Initiative

Today, we are excited to announce that we are collaborating with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) STRIDES (Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability) Initiative to foster innovation in biomedical research using technological advancements in the AWS Cloud.

Biomedical research, similar to other big data-driven scientific domains, has data that is highly distributed and generated from various research labs across the world. As the world’s largest funding agency of biomedical research, the NIH supports the generation and analysis of substantial quantities of biomedical research data. Each day, NIH transmits more than eight petabytes of data across its network. Analyzing and sharing vast amounts of data distributed across institutions presents substantial challenges. Data reliability, security, and privacy are vital in this domain. Cloud computing can provide elastic and scalable compute resources, a secure and shareable storage platform, and tools for advanced analytics with global network connectivity for research collaborations.

“Teaming with Amazon Web Services will give NIH researchers powerful cloud-based resources to more efficiently collaborate and analyze data,” said Andrea T. Norris, Director of NIH’s Center for Information Technology and NIH Chief Information Officer. “Expanding our cloud service provider network will allow us to provide the research community access to the tools they need to advance science. AWS’s longstanding leadership in the cloud space will help bolster the innovative research being conducted through NIH support.”

As part of the agreement, AWS will host a range of high-value datasets, including both open- and controlled-access data with appropriate security and privacy controls. As part of the AWS Public Dataset Program, we presently host several genomics, health, and life sciences datasets, including Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), 1000 Genomes, 3000 Rice Genomes Project, and Tabula Muris. As part of our new collaboration with NIH, we expect to add multiple high-value, NIH-funded datasets to this program to broaden data access and use for the biomedical research community.

Using the advances in computing, analytics, and database technologies that AWS provides, researchers will be better equipped to interpret genomic sequences, correlate molecular measurements to health conditions, and even find cures for deadly diseases.  Access to the AWS Cloud will help NIH researchers, as well as scientists across the nation receiving NIH support, make use of AWS’s wide range of services, including data analytics and machine learning.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with the NIH, and to support the important work these investigators are doing to accelerate discoveries in biomedical research,” said Teresa Carlson, Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector at AWS. “We’re committed to providing those researchers participating in the STRIDES Initiative with access to high-value NIH datasets, enabling them to further their research to study, treat, and prevent the most devastating diseases.”

In addition, AWS continues to support scientific tools for biomedical research, including Cromwell for AWS and nextflow.io. For more information on AWS healthcare and life sciences solutions, including support from our partner community, visit our website.

A post by Sanjay Padhi, Ph.D, AWS Research and Technical Computing, Amazon Web Services