LIBD Wins Amazon Web Services IMAGINE Grant for Nonprofits

Baltimore, Maryland (Dec. 3, 2024) — The Lieber Institute for Brain Development 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 Lieber Institute, located on the Johns Hopkins medical campus in Baltimore, will use the grant to develop a new generative AI tool to find new, more effective treatments for mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. 

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.

The Lieber Institute was named a winner in the Pathfinder – Generative AI category which recognizes highly innovative, mission-critical projects that leverage generation AI. The Lieber Institute will receive up to $200,000 in unrestricted funding, up to $100,000 in AWS Promotional Credits, and implementation support from the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center. 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.

Lieber Institute scientists led by Shizhong Han, Ph.D., a Lead Investigator at the Institute, along with Staff Scientists Michael Nagle, Ph.D., and Jiyun Zhou, Ph.D., will use the funding to develop a new generative AI approach to create new drugs to treat mental illness and evaluate those drugs for effectiveness. Existing drugs for schizophrenia target proteins associated with just a handful of risk genes. Schizophrenia involves hundreds of risk genes, so the effectiveness of current drugs is limited. The Lieber Institute aims to treat the root cause of the disease by mitigating the combined effects of these numerous risk genes. The new AI tool, called Generative Reinforcement Alignment of Predicted Expression, or GRAPE, will design new molecular structures for potential drugs based on the known gene expression patterns of conditions like schizophrenia.

GRAPE is unique in that it will use generative AI to design new drugs—an approach proven in previous research—combined with predictive AI to evaluate the effectiveness of the new drugs. The Lieber Institute is uniquely positioned for this project combining generative and predictive AI. The Institute is an independent nonprofit research institute staffed with experts from many scientific fields, including psychiatrists, neuroscientists, drug development investigators, data researchers and more. Its collection of almost 5,000 donated brains is the largest repository for the study of mental illness in the world.

“GRAPE will bridge our gene expression datasets and our drug development capabilities, bringing new value to our data resources and directly supporting our mission to translate biological insights into improved treatments for people living with schizophrenia and other serious psychiatric disorders,” says Dr. Han.

“Artificial intelligence is a crucial tool in drug discovery as it allows us to design, identify and evaluate new drugs much faster than traditional methods,” adds Daniel Weinberger, M.D., director and CEO of the Lieber Institute. “We see a future for GRAPE in developing drugs to treat mental illnesses and beyond. We envision the technology as a highly general tool for drug design across diverse medical conditions. We’re excited this AWS IMAGINE Grant is enabling solutions for patients with mental illnesses and their families—as well as all of us interested in better human health overall.”

“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 $14M 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.

For more information on the AWS IMAGINE Grant, visit aws.amazon.com/IMAGINE-grant

About the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD)

The mission of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and the Maltz Research Laboratories is to translate the understanding of basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. LIBD is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization and a Maryland tax-exempt medical research institute affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The Lieber Institute’s brain repository of nearly 5,000 human brains is the largest collection of postmortem brains for the study of neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide.