ZonMw Off Road grant awarded for AI-driven regulatory profiling in β-cells

Created on October 01, 2026

2026

Author: Annique Claringbould

Very happy to share that my grant proposal From polygenic scores to regulatory profiles: Evaluating sequence-based AI in human β-cells has been funded by ZonMw’s Off Road grant!

🚀 With the recent development of AI sequence-to-function models, the central question is: can we combine variant-level predictions into a patient-specific regulatory profile for type 2 diabetes risk, and then test it in the lab in human β-cells?

🎯 Testing these predictions will show what these models get right and where they fall short, shaping experimental design and research questions in the future.

Google DeepMind’s new AlphaGenome Atlas couldn’t have come out at a better time. Exciting times ahead!