AB Nexus announces new grant awards with a focus on research collaborations related to AI and climate change

Today, the AB Nexus program announced its 2024 seed grant awards to interdisciplinary research teams from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and the University of Colorado Boulder. Collectively, the seven winning teams will receive $713,000 in funding to advance cutting-edge research that improves human health and well-being. 

AB Nexus is a unique program that provides joint-campus funding and resources to catalyze research collaborations between CU Boulder and CU Anschutz. By fostering intercampus partnerships between scientists, engineers and physicians from diverse disciplines, AB Nexus has helped to advance new innovations and discoveries while growing CU’s collective research enterprise.

”AB Nexus has created a new culture of research collaboration at the University of Colorado,” said Thomas Flaig, MD, vice chancellor for research at CU Anschutz. “Solving the toughest challenges in human health requires teamwork across a wide range of fields, and we’re very proud of how this program has helped to inspire so many new interdisciplinary research projects across our campuses.”

Accelerating collaborative research in human health and wellness

Since launching in 2020, AB Nexus has awarded more than $4.2 million in seed funding to 55 collaborative research teams, several of which have gone on to secure additional external funding and publish peer-reviewed research papers that are helping to improve health care and medicine.

For example, one team that received a $125,000 AB Nexus seed grant in 2020 was recently awarded up to $39 million in funding from the federal government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The team of scientists from CU Boulder, CU Anschutz and Colorado State University is working to develop new regenerative treatments for osteoarthritis. 

“Within five years, our goal is to develop a suite of non-invasive therapies that can end osteoarthritis,” said project leader and Principal Investigator Stephanie Bryant, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering at CU Boulder. “It could be an absolute game-changer for patients.”

Awarded teams to tackle wide range of health challenges

The 2024 AB Nexus awardees include three newly formed teams and four projects that expand upon existing collaborations. Individual grants range in size from $65,000 to $125,000, and this year’s funds include generous co-sponsor support: $100,000 from the University of Colorado Cancer Center and $95,000 from the Department of Computer Science at CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. 

This year, AB Nexus developed two themed “tracks” for its grant applications. In addition to the general human health track, research teams focused on “Climate Change and Health” and “AI/Advanced Computing and Health” were invited to apply to topic-specific AB Nexus grants.  

“We are identifying themes like AI and climate change to further explore research collaborations on our campuses that can significantly impact health and well-being,” said Massimo Ruzzene, vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes at CU Boulder. “Through strategic alignment with societal needs, federal funding trends and partnership opportunities, the research projects associated with these themes are better positioned for novel discoveries and improving human health.”

Among the collaborative research projects that received AB Nexus awards in 2024:  

• A cardiologist and computer scientist are exploring new applications of artificial intelligence to improve medical devices like pacemakers for heart failure patients
• An electrical engineer who specializes in medical imaging has teamed up with a mathematician to develop deep learning algorithms that can help doctors to better diagnose and assess accreta, a life-threatening condition involving the placenta tissue of expectant mothers
• A doctor and environmental scientist are investigating how climate change could have a disproportionately negative effect on Colorado’s prison population—and how to mitigate those impacts and improve inmate health in the face of rising temperatures
• An obstetrician and computer scientist are using advanced machine learning techniques to create better predictive models for the recurrence of ovarian cancer, which could lead to more personalized and effective treatments for patients

The full list of 2024 AB Nexus award winners is below. With the support of joint-campus leadership, the next AB Nexus award cycle will occur in spring 2025. More information will be available on the AB Nexus website this fall.