The Institute for Genomic Biology

Improving Crop Yield through Photosynthesis

Stephen Long and Don Ort receive $25M grant from Gates Foundation to improve photosynthetic properties of key food crops.

Improving Drought-Resistance of Biofuel Grasses

Andrew Leakey’s lab receives $1.8M DOE grant in multi-institutional effort to develop drought-resistant grasses for use in biofuels.

New Innovator Award

Sua Myong is named recipient of a 2012 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award

5-Year NASA-Funded Research Grant Awarded

Biocomplexity members form new NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) team to study the origin and evolution of life on five-year $8M grant.

Intellectual Property increases

IGB had 15 disclosures and 12 U.S. patent applications, with 2 patents issued and 2 licenses optioned.

Ryan Bailey received a 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship

Ryan Bailey received a 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

SING Conference

IGB hosted first Summer Internship for Native Americans in Genomics week-long conference.

$3.2 Million DOE Grant

$3.2 million grant from the Departments of Energy and Agriculture to the EBI for improving special crops to be grown for biofuels

New Center Created

The Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory was created to lead research on the impact of nutrition on learning and memory in the human brain.

Newly Engineered Yeast Strain

A newly engineered yeast strain can simultaneously consume two types of sugar from plants to produce ethanol. The new strain reduces or eliminates several major inefficiencies associated with current biofuel production methods.

$33.9 Million Glue Grant

$33.9 million for a five-year “Glue grant” from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences for the Enzyme Function Initiative, which will develop a strategy for discovering the functions of unknown enzymes discovered in genome sequencing projects.

Wolf Prize in Agriculture

Harris Lewin named the winner of the 2011 Wolf Prize in Agriculture

Election to the NAS

Nigel Goldenfeld was elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Governor Visit

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn visits IGB

AAAS Fellow

Huimin Zhao and Donald Ort were named AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

1st Patent Application

First patent filed

Teaching Business Skills to Life Scientists

New program to teach business skills to life scientists launched—the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Management

Dedication

Building dedicated, March 29, 2007

320-acre Energy Farm

Creation of 320-acre Energy Farm devoted to the study and production of feedstock for biofuel production including Miscanthus x giganticus, a hybrid grass that can grow to 13 feet tall and possibly serve as a fuel source.

$7 million NIH Grant

$7 million National Institutes of Health grant to search for new antibiotics

Construction Completed

IGB building construction completed in November 2006

IGB Stem Cell Facility

Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana and the University of Illinois created the Carle Foundation Hospital/Institute for Genomic Biology Stem Cell Facility

$14M Support for Research Themes

$14 million in new federal and private support secured by faculty for their research themes

Presidential Early Career Award

Theme leader Neil Kelleher received the Presidential Early Career Award

Carl Woese named to Royal Society

Carl Woese elected a foreign member of the Royal Society, the oldest continuously active scientific academy in the world

Construction Begins

Construction begins on the IGB, a $75 million, 186,000 square foot state-of- the-art facility, April 2004

$5M for BeeSpace

Second of two IGB grants received: $5 million from the National Science Foundation for BeeSpace, an interactive environment for analyzing nature and nurture in societal roles

Call for Proposals

Competitive campus-wide call for thematic research proposals

State Funding Released

State government funding for the building project released