{"id":43699,"date":"2026-08-26T08:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/?p=43699"},"modified":"2026-08-26T12:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T16:18:36","slug":"bu-doctoral-students-anand-sahu-and-pridhi-balhara-win-2026-merck-innovation-cup-for-ai-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/2026\/08\/26\/bu-doctoral-students-anand-sahu-and-pridhi-balhara-win-2026-merck-innovation-cup-for-ai-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"BU Students Anand Sahu and Pridhi Balhara Win 2026 Merck In Silico Innovation Cup for AI Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maureen L. Stanton<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Boston University Chemistry doctoral students <\/span>Anand Sahu and <\/span>Pridhi Balhara were part of the <\/span>research team awarded the 2026 Merck In Silico Innovation Cup for AI Agents<\/a>, an international competition exploring the use of AI agents to address scientific research and development challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sahu, a doctoral student in BU\u2019s College of Arts & Sciences and a <\/span>National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Trainee in the ENERGIZE Program<\/a>, led the team\u2019s work and presented the project at Merck KGaA\u2019s headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany. Selected from 41 submissions from 18 countries, the winning project received a \u20ac10,000 prize.<\/span><\/p>\n

The competition challenged researchers to use AI assistants, agents, or co-pilots to analyze complex research and development data, support scientific decision-making, and generate new research insights with minimal human input.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"4Their project, \u201cAn experiment-calibrated in-silico AI co-scientist discovers chemoselective SiN passivation,\u201d addressed the problem of area-selective deposition, a method for growing material precisely where it is needed on a chip. The team built an autonomous AI \u201cco-scientist\u201d to identify chemical approaches for controlling that process, with potential applications in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sahu and Balhara share the award with Jiaming Hu and Rabia Khurshid of the University of Miami, Madeha Memon of Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, and Jamsher Bhanbhro of the University of Calabria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Sahu and Balhara conduct research in in<\/span>\u00a0Professor Qiang Cui’s research group<\/a>\u00a0at BU. Sahu develops computational methods for studying chemical and biochemical systems, while Balhara, a joint PhD student in the Cui Group and Professor John Straub\u2019s lab<\/a><\/span>, uses computational modeling to study biomolecular systems, including protein-lipid interactions and protein aggregation. Cui and Straub are also faculty affiliates of Hariri Institute for Computing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Sahu and Balhara were able to demonstrate how AI can automate heavy analytical lifting, allowing researchers to step back and focus on high-level discovery,” said Professor Cui. “It’s a fantastic achievement and we are very proud of them.”<\/p>\n

Sahu is also an inaugural NSF Research Trainee in ENERGIZE,<\/a> an interdisciplinary program focused on sustainable energy conversion and storage. <\/span><\/p>\n

Backed by a $3 million, five-year NSF Research Traineeship grant, ENERGIZE<\/a> is jointly led by BU\u2019s Institute for Global Sustainability and the Center for Computational Science at the Hariri Institute for Computing, with support from the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

The program has its origins in a 2021 Hariri Institute Focused Research Program<\/a> led by co-PIs Emily Ryan (Engineering, CDS) and David Coker (Chemistry, CDS), which explored how data science could accelerate advances in energy research.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maureen L. Stanton Boston University Chemistry doctoral students Anand Sahu and Pridhi Balhara were part of the research team awarded the 2026 Merck In Silico Innovation Cup for AI Agents, an international competition exploring the use of AI agents to address scientific research and development challenges. Sahu, a doctoral student in BU\u2019s College of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":43701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11832],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43699"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43736,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43699\/revisions\/43736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}