The AB Nexus Grant Program has awarded $825,000 to five research teams from the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Anschutz to pursue interdisciplinary research aimed at improving human health and well-being.
Established in 2020, AB Nexus brings together researchers from the two campuses whose complementary expertise can open new avenues of discovery. With this year’s awards, the program has now awarded more than $5.9 million to 64 teams, which have gone on to secure more than $47.6 million in extramural funding awards.
“The strength of AB Nexus is that it connects expertise that rarely resides in one place. This year’s teams bring together capabilities ranging from artificial intelligence and computational modeling to clinical medicine and neuroscience. Those connections create opportunities to tackle complex health challenges in new ways while building collaborations that can grow well beyond these initial awards.”
– Thomas Flaig, MD, vice chancellor for research at CU Anschutz
“Supporting promising ideas at an early stage is an important part of building a strong and innovative research enterprise,” said Massimo Ruzzene, senior vice chancellor for research and innovation and dean of the institutes at CU Boulder. “AB Nexus allows researchers to draw on the exceptional research environments of CU Boulder and CU Anschutz to pursue new directions and build the foundation for discoveries that neither campus might achieve alone.”
This year’s AB Nexus awards focused on two distinct funding tracks. Three new teams of early-career investigators will each receive $75,000 through the “Exploratory” funding track, which supports new intercampus collaborations and helps researchers develop concepts positioned for future external funding. Two additional teams will each receive $300,000 over two years through a “Special Topic” track supporting researchers leveraging artificial intelligence and computational approaches to improve understanding, prediction, diagnosis and treatment of neurological conditions.
“The strength of AB Nexus is that it connects expertise that rarely resides in one place,” said Thomas Flaig, MD, vice chancellor for research at CU Anschutz. “This year’s teams bring together capabilities ranging from artificial intelligence and computational modeling to clinical medicine and neuroscience. Those connections create opportunities to tackle complex health challenges in new ways while building collaborations that can grow well beyond these initial awards.”
2026 AB Nexus Project Awardees
A Nanobody-Based Platform for Targeted Degradation of G Protein-Coupled Receptors in Innate Immune Signaling
Principal Investigators: Nathan Belliveau, PhD, CU Boulder, and John Janetzko, PhD, CU Anschutz
This project develops a new nanobody-based approach to selectively remove cell-surface receptors that drive harmful immune responses. By combining protein engineering with quantitative studies of immune-cell behavior, the team aims to establish a new strategy for controlling excessive inflammation during severe infection while preserving protective immune function.
Mathematical Modeling to Accelerate Tuberculosis Vaccine Trials
Principal Investigators: Tyler Brown, MD, CU Anschutz, and Stephen Kissler, PhD, CU Boulder
Tuberculosis vaccine trials can require large numbers of participants followed for several years because infection progresses slowly and only some people develop active disease. This project will use mathematical modeling and data on tuberculosis infection and disease progression to explore new approaches to designing vaccine trials. The researchers aim to develop tools that could help make future trials smaller and faster, accelerating progress toward an effective tuberculosis vaccine.
Safe and Robust Diagnosis from Symptoms Using Large Language Models
Principal Investigators: Maria Pacheco, PhD, CU Boulder, and Indira Sriram, MD, CU Anschutz
This project will develop and test an AI-based framework designed to improve diagnosis of rare pediatric autoimmune diseases. The team will combine large language models with a system that explicitly evaluates clinical evidence, with particular attention to how patients describe symptoms in everyday language and across multiple languages. The researchers aim to improve the accuracy and safety of AI-assisted diagnosis while reducing potentially harmful diagnostic delays.
Restoring Executive Function Through AI-Guided Neuromodulation
Principal Investigators: Marie Banich, PhD, CU Boulder, and Cristin Welle, PhD, CU Anschutz
The researchers will develop AI approaches that can decode brain activity associated with executive function—the cognitive abilities involved in decision-making, problem-solving and planning—and help determine how and when to stimulate the brain to improve those functions. Initially focused on Parkinson’s disease, the project aims to develop a “cognitive neuroprosthesis” that could ultimately help restore cognitive function in people with neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Detecting Early Warning Signs of Dementia Using High-Frequency Financial Data
Principal Investigators: Theodora Chaspari, PhD, CU Boulder, and Lauren Nicholas, PhD, MPP, CU Anschutz
Changes in financial behavior, including erratic bill payments and risky financial decisions, can emerge before dementia is diagnosed. This team will use two decades of credit-report data linked to dementia diagnoses to develop AI models that can identify subtle, progressive changes in individual financial behavior. The researchers aim to develop tools that could support earlier dementia detection while helping protect patients and families from the financial consequences of cognitive decline.
Key points:
- AB Nexus has awarded $825,000 to five CU Anschutz-CU Boulder research teams in 2026.
- Three early-career teams received $75,000 Exploratory awards, while two teams received $300,000 Special Topic awards focused on AI, computational methods and neurological conditions.
- Projects address immune responses, tuberculosis vaccines, pediatric autoimmune disease, executive function and dementia detection.
- Since 2020, AB Nexus has awarded more than $5.9 million to 634 teams.
- Those teams have subsequently secured more than $47.6 million in extramural funding awards.