AWS supports ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health to advance crucial research and solutions

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), we believe in the power of cloud technology to transform healthcare and improve lives. Because of this, at AWS re:Invent 2024 we announced a commitment of up to $2 million in AWS credits to help four Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health (SWH) launchpad awardees address critical unmet challenges in women’s health. This initiative is funded by AWS Social Responsibility & Impact and facilitated through the ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub.

Learn more about the four solutions in the following sections.

University of Iowa College of Pharmacy Dean and Professor Jill Kolesar—standing next to the CliniMacs Pro, an instrument used to separate ovarian cancer cells of interest—is one of four ARPA-H SWH awardees using AWS services to advance crucial needs in women’s health.

The University of Iowa College of Pharmacy is exploring ways to use personalized nanoparticles and boost a woman’s own immune system to treat late-stage and metastatic ovarian cancer.

“Support from AWS allows us to efficiently identify cancer markers that predict which patients benefit the most from this novel treatment and ultimately can help us develop a next generation drug that works even better,” said Jill Kolesar, Dean and Professor at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy.

Also tackling gynecological health, Aspira Women’s Health is developing a non-invasive diagnostic tool for endometriosis. Their multimodal approach aims to track disease progression, potentially informing not only diagnosis but also prognosis and treatment for this often-debilitating condition.

“Aspira Women’s Health is a leader in the application of machine learning to in vitro diagnostics and we are excited to be provided access to the comprehensive services and tools provided by AWS,” said Dr. Todd Pappas, Vice President of Research and Development at Aspira Women’s Health. “We believe these will expand our toolbox for developing and managing machine learning models and free up our data scientists to focus on maximizing performance of our algorithms.”

The Aspira Women’s Health lab team.

Because of its significant health impacts, menopause is associated with increased risk of cancer, dementia, and cardiovascular disease. This is the problem Gameto aims to tackle, by constructing a cell-therapy implant which could replace deficient ovarian function and manage menopause-associated symptoms.

“The Gameto team looks forward to innovating at the intersection of women’s health and cell therapy,” said Christian Gramme, Chief Scientific Officer at Gameto. “Through our collaboration with ARPA-H and AWS, we aim to develop a deep understanding of ovarian physiology and endocrine health, using the latest tools in machine learning, single cell sequencing, and proteomics to advance our therapeutic asset.”

Also aiming to drive better understanding and treatment of serious conditions affecting women, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, working with GE HealthCare, is working on validation and commercialization of a noninvasive MRI metric of glymphatic function, with the aim of improving understanding, clinical assessment, and therapeutic treatment of the numerous neurological disorders which are more prevalent in women.

Encapsulated ovarian support cells shown through a microscope, demonstrating Gameto’s cell engineering technology.

“Technology has the potential to open new frontiers in healthcare, and we are thrilled to collaborate with Dr. Alsop and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center team on development of a new non-invasive way to study brain fluid transport using MRI technology and advanced computing, with the goal of advancing understanding of complex brain disorders that disproportionately affect women,” said Suchandrima Banerjee, Senior Director for Neuro MRI, at GE HealthCare. “We plan to use the AWS Cloud and compute resources for storage of the multi-modal data that will be acquired during the project and development of deep learning models for image reconstruction.”

Cloud technology as an enabler for healthcare research

ARPA-H’s SWH awardees can use the AWS Health Data Portfolio as they aim to deliver results faster. This includes purpose-built AWS services, ranging from secure data transfer, aggregation, and storage to data analytics, collaboration, sharing, and governance, such as AWS HealthOmics (to transform genomic, transcriptomic, and other omics data into insights) and AWS HealthImaging (to store, transform, and analyze medical images in the cloud at petabyte scale). And with the most comprehensive set of data capabilities and deepest set of AI and ML services, including generative AI services such as Amazon Bedrock, researchers can work with AWS to gain insights from first-party, third-party, and multi-modal data and integrate cutting-edge technologies into existing workflows.

Awardees will also be able to further their growth through participation in the following AWS programs:

• Registry of Open Data: Researchers have the opportunity to host their de-identified data for public use through the AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program, with AWS covering the costs of storage for publicly available high-value cloud-optimized datasets.
• Partner Acceleration: AWS offers awardees who aren’t currently AWS Partners the ability to join the AWS Partner Acceleration Program, supporting their rapid onboarding into the AWS Partner Network.

The steadfast commitment of AWS to healthcare innovation

This effort extends the ongoing commitment of AWS to advancing healthcare and life sciences through cloud technology. We have a long history of supporting healthcare organizations, research institutions, and biotechnology companies in their efforts to improve patient outcomes, accelerate drug discovery, and enhance healthcare delivery. Recently, we announced the first recipients to be funded as part of our Children’s Healthcare Innovation Initiative, support for the new Cancer AI Alliance with the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, as well as ongoing efforts with customers to drive breakthroughs in cancer, the successful conclusion of our $60 million Health Equity Initiative, and accelerator programs that support startups building impactful healthcare technology solutions.

A brighter future for women’s health

The $2 million commitment from AWS to the ARPA-H SWH awardees represents more than just financial support. It’s a testament to our belief in the power of cloud technology to drive meaningful change in healthcare.

Click here to learn more about how AWS works with the global healthcare and life sciences community.