Isn’t Science Beautiful?
The Institute for Systems Biology, where science solves problems, saves lives, and benefits human life on a global scale. If that’s not beautiful, we don’t know what is.
A microbial community-scale metabolic model of an individual’s gut generated byMICOM data and the data visualization tool Gephi. Image credit: Gibbons Lab/ISB.
Our science is transforming health.
ISB is uncovering new solutions to the world’s most pressing health problems.
ISB Building at dusk in South Lake Union, Seattle. Photo credit: Trevor Dykstra.
Great minds don’t think alike.
ISB employs over 170 staff with expertise across a wide range of disciplines. Our teams span multiple scientific fields, with molecular biologists, geneticists, software engineers, computational biologists, and even microbial ecologists working together.
Members of the Kuchina Lab working at ISB in Seattle. Photo credit: Scott Eklund/Red Box Pictures.
Featured Research Topics
Cancer won’t cure itself.
Cancer is complex and requires a sophisticated systems approach to understand and treat it. ISB researchers are pursuing several complex and cross-disciplinary means to better create more personalized therapeutics and simulate which treatments will be most effective.
You are not entirely human.
Each of us has a microbiome — trillions of microorganisms that reside in and on our bodies. ISB researchers study the microbiome’s role in human health and translate this knowledge into approaches designed to promote better health for every individual.
Rewriting the rules of resistance.
Our infectious disease research addresses a wide range of global health initiatives. We are exploring new approaches that focus on cutting-edge treatments and preventive measures to fight infectious diseases.
Latest News
Read the latest news of our transformational research, devoted scientists and educators, recent and upcoming events, and much more.
ISB’s Sui Huang Challenges the Genetic Paradigm of Cancer in New Essay
ISB Professor Sui Huang challenges the prevailing view of cancer as purely genetic in a new essay published in PLOS Biology. Huang and colleagues argue that many cancers lack identifiable driver mutations, suggesting non-genetic factors and disrupted gene regulatory networks may play crucial roles in cancer development.
Melanoma Starts Evading Treatment Within Hours – Here’s How to Stop It
ISB researchers have uncovered a stealth survival strategy that melanoma cells use to evade targeted therapy, offering a promising new approach to improving treatment outcomes.
2024-25 School Year ISB Education Highlights
In the February installment of the 2024-25 academic year roundup, we highlight two ISB Education team members who led a session for high school students looking for STEM-related experiences, and more.
A purple ribbon, the color for gynecologic cancers, composed with diverse faces illustrated by Stacey Knipe.
Join us in our journey to bring effective treatments to all women with HPV+ cancers.
The Women’s Health Consortium, led by ISB President Dr. Jim Heath, is taking a collaborative approach to engineered T cell immunotherapy to benefit all women with advanced HPV+ cancers. Your support will help us bring innovative therapies to patients in need.
Featured Researchers
Dr. Jim Heath
President and Professor Jim Heath is dedicated to advancing precision medicine from benchtop to bedside, particularly in oncology. His research addresses fundamental scientific bottlenecks that can unlock solutions to broader challenges.
Dr. Sean Gibbons
Associate Professor Sean Gibbons develops experimental and computational approaches to dissect and engineer the functional outputs of the human gut microbiome to advance personalized medicine.
Dr. Anna Kuchina
Assistant Professor Anna Kuchina studies bacteria at the single-cell level, using advanced technologies to understand how bacteria behave in complex settings such as biofilms living in the human body.
Help us realize a new vision of health.
The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is a nonprofit scientific research organization located in Seattle. We believe that science has the power to transform health. You have an opportunity to play an essential role in the future of human health. When you get involved, you enable our researchers to tackle some of the biggest challenges of our time. Together we can build a better, brighter, healthier future.