The Institute for Genomic Biology

In The News

Honey Bees
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (June 9) -- As honey bee numbers continue to decline, some studies suggest a link between dead bees and high levels of neonicotinoid compounds. “It’s a controversial subject,” says Gene E. Robinson, the director of the Bee Research Facility at the U. of I. “Not all studies agree with each other. It’s a subject that bears more scrutiny.”
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Sea Slugs
e! Science News (Quebec City, June 6) -- Research by U. of I. professor of molecular and integrative physiology Rhanor Gillette shows that a deep-water species of sea slug found off the west coast of the United States may be smarter than was thought.
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Biofuels
Domestic Fuel (Holts Summit, Mo., June 5) -- A study from two U. of I. researchers says the Environmental Protection Agency lacks “transparency and clarity” when it comes to approving new feedstocks for biofuels.
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Infection
Health Canal (Melbourne, Australia, June 5) -- U. of I. anthropology professor Rebecca M. Stumpf has co-written an article that says social networks could help prevent disease outbreaks.
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Newsletter
The newest issue of the Enzyme Function Initiative (EFI) newsletter, EFIinside, is now available. The EFI is a large-scale collaborative project (glue grant) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of approximately 80 researchers at 9 academic institutions in the US and Canada. They are developing a robust sequence/structure based strategy for facilitating discovery of in vitro enzymatic and in vivo metabolic/physiological functions of unknown enzymes discovered in genome projects, a crucial limitation in genomic biology.
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Crop Pest
Food Safety News (Seattle, May 28) -- The western corn rootworm defeated crop rotation during the 1990s when a new strain of the worm began began laying eggs in soybean fields so it would be ready for corn planting in the following year. “Up until then, rotation of corn and soybeans was a pretty good control strategy,” says U. of I. entomologist Michael Gray.
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Tension Gauge Tether
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 23) -- A new tension gauge tether laboratory method developed by Taekjip Ha with postdoctoral researcher Xuefeng Wang has broad applications for research into stem cells, cancer, infectious disease and immunology.
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Bees
Agri News (LaSalle, Ill., May 21) -- Diets used in beekeeping may play a role in preventing the insects from staving off the effects of some pesticides, a new study suggests. The findings of the research, led by U. of I. entomologist May Berenbaum, were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
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Tumor Growth
Scicasts (Leicester, England) (May 20) -- Researchers at the U. of I. have made progress in the fight against cancer. A new study, published in the journal Oncogene, shows how an important component of the inflammatory response and immune cell growth can become an important factor in tumor growth.
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Also:
Doctor Tipster (May 20)
Drug Discovery & Development (Rockaway, N.J.) (May 20)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md.) (May 20)

Genomic Regulation
Nanotechnology Now (Honolulu, May 20) -- Researchers form the U. of I. and Mayo Clinic have developed a novel single molecule test for detecting DNA methylation that should greatly simplify and advance the study of this important genomic process.
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Colorectal Cancer
News-Medical . net (Sydney, May 20) -- “African Americans have the highest colorectal cancer incidence and mortality rates of all racial groups in the U.S.,” says Franck Carbonero, a postdoctoral research associate at the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology. “The reasons for this are not yet understood. Our findings offer insight into this disparity and pave the way for new research.”
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Also:
Health24 (Johannesburg) (May 20)

Cicadas
The Irish Times (Dublin, May 20) -- Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the east coast of the U.S., scientists say. “It’s not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people,” said May Berenbaum, a U. of I. entomology professor. They are looking for just one thing: sex.
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Biofuels
Phys Org. com (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 15) -- U. of I. scientists have developed an environmentally friendly and more economical way of pretreating Miscanthus in the biofuel production process.
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Also:
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif.) (May 15)

Sacred Lotus
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 10) -- U. of I. researchers report in the journal Genome Biology that they have sequenced the lotus genome, and the results offer insight into the heart of some of its mysteries.
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Also:
News-Medical . net (May 14)

Corn
Corn and Soybean Digest (Minneapolis, May 9) -- U. of I. agricultural entomologist Mike Gray has conducted western corn rootworm research for many years and has analyzed the economic impact of corn rootworm Bt hybrids.
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Biofuels
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., May 8) -- Jody Endres, a U. of I. professor of natural resources and environmental sciences, says standards are needed so farmers, ethanol producers, and others in the biofuels industry will all be on the same page.
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Royal Society
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 6) -- U. of I. plant biologist Stephen P. Long has been elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the world's oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Members are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science, via a thorough peer review process.
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Entomology
The New York Times (May 2) -- The devastation of American honeybee colonies is the result of a complex stew of factors, including pesticides, parasites, poor nutrition and a lack of genetic diversity, according to a comprehensive federal study published on Thursday. May Berenbaum, the head of the department of entomology at Illinois and a participant in the study, says that examination of dead bees had found residues of more than 100 chemicals, insecticides and pesticides, including some used to control parasites in bee hives.
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Biomarkers For Ovarian Cancer
Medical Xpress (Douglas, Isle of Man, April 30) -- Illinois animal sciences professor Sandra Rodriguez-Zas and graduate student Kristin Delfino identified biomarkers that are used to determine ovarian cancer survival and recurrence and showed how the interactions between these biomarkers affect these outcomes.
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Honey Bees
Science News (Williamsport, Pa., April 29) -- Honey is more than a sweet treat to bees. New tests find compounds in honey that trigger surges of activity in genes needed for detoxifying chemicals or for making antimicrobial agents. The research was led by U. of I. entomologist May Berenbaum. The findings might provide clues in how to slow the rapid decline of bee populations attributed to "colony collapse disorder."
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Also:
Los Angeles Times (April 29)
NBC News (April 29)

Biological Engineering
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., April 25) -- People with chronic diseases such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis have inflamed, leaky blood vessels, heightening their risk of heart attack and stroke. Some scientists envision using a patient’s own stem cells to regrow healthy tissue to plug the leaks and calm inflammation. A polymer coating developed by U. of I. chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Hyunjoon Kong could help those cells find their biological targets.
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Climate Change
Nature (London, April 23) -- Evan DeLucia, a U. of I. plant biology professor, says results from a new experiment intended to assess the impact of increased carbon dioxide on the Amazon rainforest need to be considered in relation to the scale of the forest. “At the end of the day, no experiment is representative of the totality of the biome,” says DeLucia, who has conducted similar research in South Carolina.
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A Minute With .... Gene Robinson
illinois . edu (Champaign, Illinois, April 19) -- Entomologist and IGB Director Gene Robinson speaks about the mysterious syndrome killing off honey bees, called Colony Collapse Disorder, with News Bureau life sciences editor Diana Yates in this week's A Minute With ...
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Art of Science
Smilepolitely . com (Champaign, Illinois, April 15) -- One of the images featured at the third annual IGB Art of Science exhibit, held this year at indi go artist co-op between April 18 and April 21, is a section of a piglet hippocampus. It was taken for the research being done in Dr. Johnson’s Lab with the Laboratory of Integrative Biology at the U of I. UI graduate student Matthew Conrad from Professor Rod Johnson's lab is interviewed about this image. 
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Insects
Agriculture . com (Des Moines, Iowa, April 8) -- “The mild winter improved the survival of some insect species, such as corn flea beetles, bean leaf beetles, soybean aphids and white grubs that overwinter in Illinois,” says Mike Gray, a U. of I. crop sciences professor.
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Honey Bees
McDonough County Voice (Macomb, Ill., April 6) -- U. of I. entomology professor May Berenbaum says Americans are just beginning to understand how important honey bees are to their daily lives. And just how disastrous their disappearance could be.
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Evolution
Discovery (April 1) -- “Our perspective is that life emerged from a collective state, and so it is not at all obvious that there is one single organism which was ancestral,” says Nigel Goldenfeld, a U. of I. physics professor.
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Crop Diseases
CropLife (Willoughby, Ohio, April 1) -- Dry and hot conditions played a major role in the incidence and spectrum of diseases growers saw in Illinois crops, says Carl Bradley, an Extension specialist at Illinois.
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Neural Networks
Scientific American (March 27) -- U. of I. biophysicist Nigel Goldenfeld’s research into how neural networks in the brain interact with one another suggests how the relatively structured architecture of the human brain might have developed as an evolutionary advantage.
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Invasive Plants
Journal Gazette & Times-Courier (Mattoon, Ill., March 26) -- Researchers at the U. of I. Energy Biosciences Institute have developed suggestions on how to improve the regulation of all invasive plant species, including new biofuels plants.
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Entomology
Pest Control Technology (pctonline.com, March 26) -- Research tells us that individual insects within a species can have different likes and dislikes, attitudes and tendencies. And when a trait, such as acting explorative, is observed in various circumstances, that behavior then can be called personality. Head of entomology May Berenbaum and IGB director Gene Robinson, both from the University of Illinois, add to the discussion on personality traits among insects.
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Endoscopy
Electronics Weekly (Croydon, England, March 22) -- Thin as a human hair and with a resolution four times that of similar devices, the world’s slimmest endoscope could soon visualize the parts other scopes cannot reach. “Just as the telecoms industry has devised ways to squeeze more information content through optical fibers, this team have done the same for medical endoscopy,” says Stephen Boppart, a bioengineering professor at the U. of I.
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Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) Announces the Fifth Annual Biofuels Law and Regulation Conference
The Fifth Annual Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) Biofuels Law and Regulation Conference, “Emerging Issues for Advanced Biofuel Commercialization,” will be held at the I Hotel and Conference Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on April 19, 2013. The EBI’s Biofuels Law and Regulation Project is organizing the Conference.

The Conference will focus on the multitude of emerging issues impacting the ongoing commercialization of advanced biofuels. It will involve leading academic, scientific, government, and industry experts, with opportunities for in-depth discussion between and among speakers and audience members. The organizers have structured the program to appeal to a variety of stakeholders, including those from business, law, government, and academia, biomass producers, students, and the public generally.

Detailed information can be found on the Conference website, www.biofuellawconference.org.  Cost of attendance is free, but registration is required. Registration questions should be directed to Elizabeth Stull, Conference Administrator, at estull@illinois.edu.

Origins of Life
Lab Manager Magazine (Midland, Ontario, March 13) -- Researchers in the Evolutionary Bioinformatics Laboratory at the U. of I. in collaboration with German scientists have been using bioinformatics techniques to probe the world of proteins for answers to questions about the origins of life.
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Bees and Caffeine
Aiken Standard (South Carolina, March 9) -- A new study says honey bees get a shot of caffeine from certain flowers, and it perks up their memory. Gene Robinson, IGB Director and entomology professor who was not involved in the study, says it provides strong evidence that coffee and citrus plants use the caffeine strategy.
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Climate Change and Food Supply
Yale Environment 360 (February 7) -- One of the few potential advantages attributed to soaring carbon dioxide levels has been enhanced crop growth. But in an interview with Yale Environment 360, professor of crop sciences and IGB faculty member Stephen Long talks about his research showing why rising temperatures and an increase in agricultural pests may offset any future productivity gains.
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Biofuel Plants
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, March 6) -- Researchers propose new solution to ensure biofuel plants don’t become noxious weeds. “According to our analysis, current noxious weed laws do not provide adequate protection to prevent invasions in natural areas, and we have a shared responsibility for proper stewardship of these landscapes,” says Lauren Quinn a research associate at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the U. of I., and the lead author of the study.
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Chemistry
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Feb. 27) -- U. of I. researchers including chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother are part of a team to design and test a set of synthetic cancer-killing compounds based on a potent fungal chemical.
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Ivory Poaching
Nature (London, Feb. 27) -- Conservationists are hoping new applications of forensic science will let authorities track poachers and crack down on the illegal ivory trade that threatens the world elephant population. Alfred Roca, an animal sciences professor at the U. of I. – whose work demonstrated that African elephants are actually likely to be two separate species – has used mitochondrial DNA to trace ivory hauls.
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Cybersecurity
SecurityInfoWatch (Alpharetta, Ga., Feb. 25) -- Security experts warn that the recent cyberattacks on Apple and The New York Times are only the highest-profile examples of an escalating problem that threatens American businesses and undermines national security. “A new frontier for people who are not our friends is attacking our infrastructure and disrupting our day-to-day lives and our economy,” says Jay Kesan, a U. of I. professor of law. “It’s not traditional warfare, but it should be a matter of very high priority.”
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Biology
Science Blog (Los Angeles, Feb. 26) -- A study led by U. of I. cell and developmental biology professor Phillip Newmark and postdoctoral researcher James J. Collins III sheds some light on the amazing survival power of a parasitic flatworm that can live in a human body for decades. It turns out, stem cells are behind the regenerative power of Schistosoma mansoni, a parasite that infects more than 230 million people annually.
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Inaugural Lewin Lecture Takes Place
The inaugural Harris A. Lewin Pioneer in Genomic Biology Distinguished Lecture took place on February 19, 2013 at the Institute for Genomic Biology. The Lewin Lecture is the first named endowment at the IGB, and featured a lecture by Professor Evan Eichler from the Department of Genomic Sciences at the University of Washington. The talk was titled “Structural Variation, Disease and the Evolution of the Human Genome" and is available for viewing at this link.

Carl Woese
Science Magazine (Washington, D.C., Feb. 8) -- A look back at the work of renowned U. of I. microbiologist Carl R. Woese, who died, Dec. 30, by Illinois physics professor Nigel Goldenfeld and Norman Pace, of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Global Warming and Crops
Environment 360 (New Haven, Conn., Feb. 7) -- One of the few potential advantages attributed to soaring carbon dioxide levels has been the prospect of enhanced crop growth. U. of I. crop sciences professor Stephen Long says rising temperatures and an increase in agricultural pests may offset any future productivity gains.
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Chemistry
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., Jan. 28) -- Most new drugs are discovered by screening compound collections, or libraries, for worthy candidates. But many such collections consist primarily of molecules that do not possess the structural, stereochemical and functional complexity equivalent to that of natural products. A new method of constructing natural-product-like compound collections developed by U. of I. chemistry professor Paul J. Hergenrother and his team aims to address that deficiency.
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Bacteria
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan. 28) -- U. of I. physics professor Karin A. Dahmen is part of a mulit-university team that has discovered that microscopic bacteria have a lot in common with earthquakes – when it comes to their jolting movements.
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Genetics
The New York Times (Jan. 28) -- A recent breakthrough by Harvard geneticist Hopi E. Hoekstra might help map animal behavior to DNA. Gene E. Robinson, of the U. of I. who has used honey bees to study social behavior, praises her “exciting, pathbreaking work” and says, “It will be hard to get to the genes, but not impossible. She has established a powerful experimental system.”
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Biochemistry
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan. 22) -- While working out the structure of a cell-killing protein produced by some strains of the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis, U. of I. researchers stumbled on a bit of unusual biochemistry. They found that a single enzyme helps form distinctly different, three-dimensional ring structures in the protein, one of which had never been observed before, says U. of I. chemistry and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Wilfred van der Donk, who conducted the study with graduate student Weixin Tang.
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Bioscience
News Medical . net (Sydney, Jan. 16) -- Researchers have shown that transplanting stem cells derived from normal mouse blood vessels into the hearts of mice that model the pathology associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy prevents the decrease in heart function associated with DMD. Although medical advances have extended the lifespans of DMD patients from their teens or 20s into their early 30s, disease-related damage to the heart and diaphragm still limits their lifespan. “Almost 100 percent of patients develop dilated cardiomyopathy,” in which a weakened heart with enlarged chambers prevents blood from being properly pumped throughout the body, says U. of I. comparative biosciences professor Suzanne Berry-Miller, who led the study.
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Biofuels
Environmental Research Web (Bristol, England, Jan. 14) -- Perennial biofuel crops such as miscanthus, whose high yields have led them to be considered an eventual alternative to corn in producing ethanol, are now shown to have another beneficial characteristic – the ability to reduce the escape of nitrogen into the environment. In a four-year U. of I. study that compared miscanthus, switchgrass and mixed prairie species to typical corn-corn-soybean rotations, each of the perennial crops was highly efficient at reducing nitrogen losses, with miscanthus being the most effective.
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Genomics
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Jan. 10) -- One of the most difficult problems in the field of genomics is assembling relatively short “reads” of DNA into complete chromosomes. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an interdisciplinary group of genome and computer scientists has solved this problem, creating an algorithm that can rapidly create “virtual chromosomes” with no prior information about how the genome is organized. The research was co-led by U. of I. bioengineering professor Jian Ma.
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In Memoriam
The New York Times (Dec. 31) -- Renowned U. of I. microbiologist Carl R. Woese, who discovered a new domain of life, died Sunday at his home in Urbana. He was 84.
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HIV Evolution
News-Medical . net (Sydney, Dec. 20) -- Alfred Roca, professor and affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population could provide important clues about how HIV has evolved.
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DNA Research
e! Science News (Quebec City, Dec. 14) -- U. of I. physics professor Taekjip Ha and his colleagues have discovered how a DNA-repair protein matches up a broken DNA strand with an intact region of double-stranded DNA.
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Also:
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (Dec. 14)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Dec. 13)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Dec. 13)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Dec. 13)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Dec. 13)

Entomology
NPR (Dec. 14) -- In a tropical rainforest in Panama, a multinational team of scientists has just completed the first ever insect census – a process that took two years to collect and another eight to process. May Berenbaum, an entomologist at Illinois, says nothing like this project has ever been done before. And it’s important because of the critical role arthropods play in nature.
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Crop Sciences
News Gazette (Dec. 14) -- U. of I. researchers will use a $5.7 million grant to screen different lines of corn for ozone resistance. Ozone damage to corn crops worldwide is estimated at $700 million a year.
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Genetics
Science (Washington, D.C., Dec. 14) -- Huimin Zhao, a U. of I. bioengineer, is turning plant pest proteins into tools for studying and reshaping genomes of many species. He and colleagues have demonstrated in yeast that a modified plant protein can correct the genetic defect underlying sickle cell disease.
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Photosynthesis Research
The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill., Dec. 12) -- The U. of I. has received a five-year, $25-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the photosynthetic properties of key food crops, including rice and cassava. “This grant will be game changing,” says Stephen Long, a professor of crop sciences and plant biology at Illinois.
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Also:
Ag Professional (St. Louis, Dec. 12)

Patent Suit
CNN (Dec. 7) -- The $1 billion patent dispute between Apple and Samsung picked back up in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday, with both sides arguing over issues of damages amounts, bans on product sales and allegations of dishonesty on the part of the jury foreman. A protracted legal battle after a jury verdict is not unusual in a case this large and complicated, and was expected by legal experts. “It shows that there is a careful process; the judge does get to review what the jury has done,” says U. of I. law professor Jay P. Kesan.
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Biofuels
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Nov. 30) -- One reason for the production expense of biofuels is that the organisms used to ferment the biomass can’t digest hemicellulose, a cell-wall component that makes up about half of the available plant material. Illinois microbiologists Isaac Cann and Rod Mackie have been doing research at the Energy Biosciences Institute on an organism that they think could be used to solve this problem.
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Entomology
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Nov. 28) -- Researchers have created an interactive website, called Antkey, which includes more than 1,150 images and 70 video clips to help users determine an ant’s identity from more than 100 invasive and commonly introduced global species. The site was developed by Andy Suarez, a U. of I. professor of entomology and animal sciences, with postdoctoral researcher Eli Sarnat.
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Food Safety
Business Standard (New Delhi, Nov. 28) -- U. of I. food science and human nutrition professor Hao Feng and colleagues have found a way to increase current industry capabilities when it comes to reducing the number of E. coli cells that may live undetected on spinach leaves.
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Also:
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Nov. 27)

Bio-Bots
National Geographic (Nov. 19) -- With the aid of a 3-D printer, U. of I. researchers have fashioned soft, quarter-inch-long biological robots out of gel-like material and rat heart cells. When the cells beat, the bio-bots take a step. “After a few days, the cells synchronize and beat spontaneously,” says Rashid Bashir, a professor of electrical, computer, and biological engineering.
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Also:
e! Science News (Quebec City, Nov. 21)
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, Nov. 21)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Nov. 21)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Nov. 21)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Nov. 21)
The Scientist (Philadelphia, Nov. 20)
Science News (Washington, D.C., Nov. 19)
Gizmag (Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 17)

Genomics
Nature (London, Nov. 14) -- The stuffed head of a domestic pig looks down from the office wall of U. of I. animal sciences professor Lawrence Schook, who also is the university’s vice president for research. This week’s draft sequence of the pig’s genome, with its detailed annotation, might benefit agriculture and eventually make it possible for pigs to be engineered to provide organs for transplant into human patients.
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Soybean Fungus
Ag Professional (St. Louis, Nov. 9) -- Frogeye leaf spot, caused by a fungus, is an important pathogen of soybean plants. EBI faculty member and plant pathologist Carl Bradley said that since 2010, strains of the fungus that are resistant to strobilurin fungicide have been found in Illinois and other states.
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Ozone
Farm Industry News (Minneapolis, Oct. 31) -- People tend to think of ozone as something in the upper atmosphere that protects Earth’s surface from ultraviolet radiation. At the ground level, however, ozone is a pollutant that damages crops, particularly soybeans. Lisa Ainsworth, a U. of I. professor of crop sciences, says that establishing the exposure threshold for damage is critical to understanding the current and future impact of this pollutant.
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Also:
Corn & Soybean Digest (Minneapolis, Nov. 1)

Bee Research Facility
Daily Illini (Urbana, Il., Nov. 1) -- Students at the University of Illinois Bee Research Facility, led by IGB Director Gene Robinson, are studying how genes influence social behavior, and how the social environment affects brain gene expression and the general evolution of bee society.
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Biomass Crops
Hoosier Ag Today (Clement, Ind., Oct. 30) -- Agricultural economists at Illinois including Madhu Khanna have been calculating the costs for farmers to produce biomass energy crops as renewable alternatives to fossil fuels.
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Also:
Western Farm Press (Clarksdale, Miss., Nov. 1)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Oct. 31)

Bioinformatics
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Oct. 26) -- Victor Jongeneel, director of the High-Performance Biological Computing (HPCBio) program and affiliate of the Institute for Genomic Biology and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, is a key participant in a grant awarded by the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Initiative, or H3Africa, to establish a pan-continental bioinformatics network to aid research.
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Blood Stem Cells
Medical Xpress (Douglas, Isle of Man, Oct. 25) -- U. of I. cell and developmental biology professor Fei Wang and colleagues have created a technique to study how myeloids, a type of blood stem cell, become the white blood cells important for immune system defense against infections and tissue damage.
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Also:
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Oct. 25)

Biofuels
Domestic Fuel (Holts Summit, Mo., Oct. 18) -- According to Jody Endres, a U. of I. professor of natural resources and environmental sciences, and Daniel Szewczyk, a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Genomic Biology, academia has failed to create green metrics for measuring the pros and cons of biofuels.
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Soybeans
Pork Magazine (Lenexa, Kan., Oct. 16) -- Matt Hudson and Brian Diers, crop sciences researchers at the U. of I., and Andrew Bent at the University of Wisconsin, think they may have found a way to strengthen the resistance of soybeans to cyst nematodes.
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Also:
Ag Professional (St. Louis, Oct. 12)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Oct. 11)

Patent Law
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia, Oct. 9) -- Do current patent laws stifle innovation? Not according to Jay P. Kesan, a U. of I. law professor. “Intellectual property is property, just like a house, and its owners deserve protection,” says Kesan. “We have rules in place, and they’re getting better.”
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Medical Scanning
Gizmag (Melbourne, Australia, Oct. 2) -- It may not be Star Trek’s famous “tricorder,” but a new device developed by a team of U. of I. engineers led by Stephan Boppart takes reality a step closer to science fiction. They have built a hand-held scanning device that provides real-time three-dimensional images of the insides of patients’ bodies.
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Also:
Health Imaging (Providence, R.I., Oct. 3)

Honey Bees
Discover Magazine (Sept. 15) -- Scientists have long known that epigenetic changes can separate a liver cell from a neuron, or even a queen bee from a worker. Other studies have found epigenetic changes that are related to changes in behavior. But as U. of I. entomologist Gene Robinson explains, researchers Adam Feinberg and Gro Amdam “demonstrate for the first time that if the behavior is reversible, so is the methylation.”
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Origins of Life
GenomeWeb Daily News (New York City, Sept. 11) -- NASA has provided $40 million to fuel efforts to develop biological tools and technologies to study the origins and evolution of life. About $8 million is coming to the U. of I. to use genomics to understand early states of life.
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Illinois physicist to lead $8 million NASA-funded study
Department of Physics (Urbana, Sept. 7) -- An interdisciplinary team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is among five new research groups selected to join the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) to study the origin and evolution of life. The NAI invitation comes with a five-year research grant totaling about $8 million.
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Astrobiology
NASA (Washington, D.C., Sept. 5) -- NASA has awarded five-year grants totaling almost $40 million to five research teams to study the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. The newly selected teams are from the U. of I., the University of Washington, MIT, the University of Wisconsin and USC.
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Farming
National Hog Farmer (Minneapolis, Aug. 31) -- Young people are not entering farming these days, and that’s a problem many communities have an interest in solving, according to a report from A. Bryan Endres and Rachel Armstrong, of the department of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois.
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Chemistry
Nanowerk News (Honolulu, Sept. 3) -- A U. of I. research group led by chemistry professor Ken Suslick has expanded the aerosol synthesis of porous carbon materials by the use of energetic carbon precursors.
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Methane
Chemical & Engineering News (Aug. 31) -- Researchers have long-wondered how Earth’s oceans could produce some 4 percent of the world’s methane, given that the potent greenhouse gas is normally produced in anaerobic environments such as swamps, not in oxygenated places like the sea. A team of U. of I. researchers led by William W. Metcalf and Wilfred A. van der Donk report that a marine microbe has the ability to make a molecule that other ocean organisms then metabolize to methane.
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Also:
The Varsity (Toronto, Sept. 9)
Green Blog (NY Times, Sept. 4)
Chemistry World (Royal Society of Chemistry; Cambridge, England, Aug. 31)
Newstrack India (New Delhi, Aug. 31)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Aug. 30)
Zee News (Noida, India, Aug. 31)
TG Daily (Batavia, Ill., Aug. 31)

Biology
Huffington Post (Aug. 22) -- Symbiotic mergers of two distinct organisms to generate a third new one (symbiogenesis) are critical to the evolutionary process. Scientists holding this position were bolstered in the 1970s with new methods of molecular taxonomy and phylogeny, pioneered by U. of I. microbiologist Carl Woese.
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Brain Cells
Bioscience Technology (Rockaway, N.J., Aug. 21) -- Working with units of material so small that it would take 50,000 to make up one drop, U. of I. chemist Jonathan Sweedler is developing the profiles of the contents of individual brain cells in a search for the root causes of chronic pain, memory loss and other maladies that affect millions of people.
read entire article

Also:
Medical Xpress (Douglas, Isle of Man, Aug. 21)
Bioscience Technology (Rockaway, N.J., Aug. 21)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Aug. 21)

Biofuels
EarthSky (Austin, Texas, Aug. 21) -- Andrew Leakey, a U. of I. professor of plant biology with the Institute for Genomic Biology, is trying to develop biofuel grasses that are drought-tolerant and will grow in marginal soils.
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Corn Pest
FOX Business (from Dow Jones Newswire, Aug. 17) -- New tests confirm that damage last year to some corn fields in western Illinois was caused by rootworms that have developed resistance to a Monsanto Co. genetically modified trait, U. of I. entomologist Mike Gray says.
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Researchers peek at the early evolution of sex chromosomes
Two new studies offer insight into sex chromosome evolution by focusing on papaya, a multimillion dollar crop plant with a sexual problem (as far as growers are concerned) and a complicated past. The findings are described in two papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Entomology
“The Academic Minute” (from WAMC-FM (90.3), Albany, N.Y.; National Science Foundation; Washington, D.C., July 30) -- An interview about bees and personality that highlights the research of U. of I. entomology professor Gene Robinson, the director of the Institute for Genomic Biology.
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Crop Disease
Public News Service (Boulder, Colo., July 27) -- Even with drought conditions across the Farm Belt taking a toll on crops, many farmers are still using planes to spray their fields for disease – quite possibly for no good reason. U. of I. plant pathologist Carl Bradley says spraying is probably not going to do any good. “We didn’t see any kind of a benefit to using fungicides in very, very dry weather.” His findings indicate that the drier the crop, the less chance there is of any disease taking hold.
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Biofuels
Biofuels Digest (Miami, July 25) -- The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a five-year, $12.1 million grant to researchers at Illinois, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and collaborators at the Carnegie Institution for Science, the University of Minnesota and Washington State University to develop a new model plant system to advance bioenergy grasses as a sustainable source of renewable fuels.
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Biofuels
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (July 16) -- The U. of I. is among five recipients of a $12.1 million federal grant to develop drought-tolerant grass as a sustainable source of biofuel.
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Also:
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., July 23)

Anthropology
The Korea Herald (Seoul, July 12) -- Ripan Malhi, a professor of anthropology at the U. of I., says a new genetic analysis adds nuance to a consensus view that there was a single source population that gave rise to Native Americans. The Harvard-led study team’s explanation that there were multiple waves of migration that interbred with the earlier groups in parts of North America helps explain the overall similarity of DNA among all Native Americans as well as some unaccounted for differences in groups from North America, Malhi wrote in an email.
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Also:
McClatchy News Service (Washington, D.C., July 11)
The Boston Globe (July 11)

Senses
Nature (June 21) -- There are well-established technologies for measuring and reproducing three of the five human senses – sight, sound and touch – but mimicking our two chemical senses, taste and smell, has proved more challenging. Kenneth Suslick, a chemist at Illinois, says that artificial versions of these senses would have practical applications and also provide an aid to understanding another aspect of human biology. Suslick works on both artificial tongues and artificial noses: The noses deal with gases, whereas the tongues handle liquids (and solids that have been liquefied, which is what happens when we eat).
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Cancer
NIH (Bethesda, Md., July 6) - A new method to isolate and grow the most dangerous cancer cells could enable new research into how cancer spreads and, ultimately, how to fight it. U. of I. researchers, led by mechanical science and engineering professor Ning Wang, and collaborators in China found that while a traditional culture of cancer cells has only a few capable of starting new tumors, a soft gel is capable of isolating tumor-repopulating cells and promoting the growth and multiplication of these cells in culture.
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Breast Milk
United Press International (July 6) -- Babies can’t digest part of what’s in breast milk, but it gives them a big health boost just the same, a U.S. researcher says. Sharon Donovan, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Illinois, examined molecules called HMOs, which are not food for babies, but do feed beneficial bacteria in the gut. Donovan says these bacteria can protect against infection and strengthen the immune system.
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New way to grow, isolate cancer cells may add weapon against disease
The news a cancer patient most fears is that the disease has spread and become much more difficult to treat. A new method to isolate and grow the most dangerous cancer cells could enable new research into how cancer spreads and, ultimately, how to fight it. “This may open the door for understanding and blocking metastatic colonization, the most devastating step in cancer progression,” said Ning Wang, a professor of mechanical science and engineering who co-led the study.
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Soybean Pest
Crop Life (Willoughby, Ohio, June 28) -- Some soybean fields in northern Illinois are currently infested with whiteflies, says Mike Gray, a U. of I. professor of entomology. “If hot and dry conditions persist, I anticipate infestations of whiteflies will intensify along with twospotted spider mite challenges in the same fields,” Gray said.
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Bees
The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, June 19) -- The apparent comeback of a rare bumblebee species in Utah is generating some excitement among scientists in the state. Efforts to raise awareness of and to spur research into the decline of U.S. bee populations has been led by U. of I. entomologist May Berenbaum. Research led by Berenbaum helped drive new initiatives by national officials to better document and protect honey bee populations, and also shed light on the oft-neglected bumblebee, a native pollinator even less understood.
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Corn Pest
Crop Life (Willoughby, Ohio, June 13) -- The Western corn rootworm season is progressing at an unprecedented pace, U. of I. crop sciences professor Mike Gray says.
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Microscopy
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., June 12) -- A study by Surangi Punyasena and Mayandi Sivaguru, researchers in the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology, identifies the best microscopy techniques to identify the shape and texture of pollen grains.
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Also:
AZoNano (Warriewood, New South Wales, June 14)

Gene Sequencing
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, June 11) -- The sequencing of the human genome has provided a wealth of genetic information, yet the goal of understanding the function of every gene remains. New research led by U. of I. bioengineering professor Sheng Zhong suggests determining the purpose of genes through a new method called “comparative epigenomics.” “Comparative epigenomics is to use interspecies comparison of DNA and histone modifications – as an approach for annotation of the regulatory genome,” Zhong said.
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Also:
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., June 11)

Immune System
News Track India (New Delhi, June 12) -- A research team including Bryan White, a U. of I. professor of animal sciences, found that the billions of bacteria in the human gastrointestinal system regulate the immune system and related autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. “Because it’s presented with multiple insults daily through the introduction of new bacteria, food sources and foreign antigens, the gut is continually teasing out what’s good and bad,” White said.
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Also:
International News Network (Islamabad, Pakistan, June 14)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., June 11)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., June 11)

Zoo Insect Exhibit
Chicago Tribune (June 6) -- The “Xtreme Bugs” exhibit at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago includes live bugs and models as large as Volkswagen Beetles. Seeing larger-than-life bugs demystifies them, says May Berenbaum, the head of the entomology department at Illinois. “That magnification eliminates one of the greatest factors that distances insects from people. One of the reasons people are uncomfortable about insects is that they’re hard to keep track of. They manage to get into your basement, into your pantry, into your pants without you being aware. These extreme bugs will not get into your pants without you being aware of what’s going on.”
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Entomology
Medill Reports (Evanston, Ill., June 6) -- Household and farm pesticides called neonicotinoids may be linked to the deaths of millions of bees, European scientists report. U.S. scientists also suggest that a particular pest, the Varroa mite, is taking a toll on bee populations. “The studies are very disconnected,” says May Berenbaum, an entomologist at Illinois. The studies don’t address factors relating to bee health, she said.
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New Core Facilities Capabilities
Institute for Genomic Biology (Urbana, June 1) -- The Core Facilities group will be receiving new capabilities with the addition of an objective inverter to augment an existing nonlinear optical microscope. This will allow for non-invasive imaging of live intact organs and tissues, specifically enabling such possibilities as neural imaging, measuring intestinal stem cell proliferation in living tissue, or real time observation of developmental changes in germ cells in testis. As part of the IGB’s microscopy core facility, this equipment is available to the entire UIUC campus community (with the required training).
Core Facilities instruments

Medical Diagnostics
Biomed Middle East (Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 31) -- Doctors can now get a peek behind the eardrum to better diagnose and treat chronic ear infections, thanks to a new medical imaging device invented by a U. of I. research team led by electrical and computer engineering professor Stephen Boppart.
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Also:
Health24 . com (Cape Town, South Africa, May 30)
Infection Control Today (Phoenix, May 30)
LaserFocusWorld (Tulsa, Okla., May 29)
Live Science (New York City, May 30)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., May 30)

Chemical Incident at IGB
Institute for Genomic Biology (Urbana, May 29) -- We'd like to thank our community over the concern of a minor chemical spill in one of our labs in the IGB research building on May 28th. We are taking this opportunity to relate the details of the event to give a clear understanding of what actually took place.
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'RNA World'
Science 2.0 (Reno, Nev., May 27) -- The “RNA world” hypothesis first appeared in 1986 and posits that the first stages of molecular evolution involved RNA and not proteins, and that proteins (and DNA) emerged later, says U. of I. crop sciences professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés. “I’m convinced that the RNA world (hypothesis) is not correct. That world of nucleic acids could not have existed if not tethered to proteins.”
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Crop Pests
Corn and Soybean Digest (Minneapolis, May 25) -- U. of I. professor of entomology Mike Gray says it’s important for farmers to watch out for the two-spotted spider mite and the bean leaf beetle, especially with very hot and dry weather in the near term.
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Miscanthus Genome
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 15) – U. of I. crop sciences professor and Energy Biosciences Institute program leader Stephen Moose and his colleagues have mapped the Miscanthus sinensis genome, a first step toward a full genome sequence of a plant with a promising future in the production of biofuels.
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Infant Nutrition
News-Medical . net (Sydney, May 15) -- A new study led by U. of I. nutrition and health professor Sharon Donovan might explain the role of a little-understood component of breast milk in helping babies develop. The research shows that human milk oligosaccharides produce short-chain fatty acids that feed a beneficial microbial population in the infant gut.
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Also:
Live Science (New York City, May 21)
Medical Xpress (Douglas, Isle of Man, May 21)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., May 21)
Zee News (Noida, India, May 22)
Daily Ledger (Canton, Ill., May 17)
The Times of India (Mumbai, May 15)
Daily Ledger (Canton, Ill., May 17)

Author File - Taekjip Ha
Nature Methods -- During DNA repair and replication, various enzymes form a team of highly coordinated players. For Taekjip Ha, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the best way to learn the rules of the game is to watch individual molecules. “You can learn so much about the protein that you couldn't have otherwise,” he says.
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Genetic Engineering
Mother Nature Network (Atlanta, May 4) -- Sorghum and sugarcane are both widely used crop plants that produce a small amount of oil, but they are mostly farmed for food purposes rather than used for fuel. The U. of I. is looking to change that. Stephen Long, a genomics biology professor at the university, heads the project, and the goal is to enhance the oil-producing qualities of sorghum and sugarcane so that they produce more oil than sugar or starch. This would make these varieties of sorghum and sugarcane into major oil crops, which could provide a significant source of fuel for the U.S.
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Anthropology
Nature (London, May 2) -- Ripan Malhi, a professor of anthropology at the U. of I., questions whether recent genetic testing results accurately prove the geographic origins of the first prehistoric settlers to the Americas. He is one of an emerging group of researchers combining modern genetic technology with archaeological investigation to answer questions about the origins of human inhabitation.
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Award
Phys Org . com (Urbana, Ill., May 1) -- Harris Lewin has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), it was announced today. Lewin, an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Animal Sciences and founding director of the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), was recognized for research he conducted during his 27 years at the University of Illinois. He is now vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Davis, where he earned his doctorate in 1984.
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Entomology
The Register-Mail (from GateHouse News Service; Galesburg, Ill., May 1) -- A profile and interview with U. of I. entomology professor Gene Robinson.
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Soybeans
Crop Life (Willoughby, Ohio, April 27) -- Sudden death syndrome caused by a fungus has plagued soybean growers in Illinois since the 1980s, according to U. of I. plant pathologist Carl Bradley.
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Crops
WICD 15 (Urbana) -- About 10 people are working on a grant funded project at the University of Illinois that would genetically engineer certain crops in order to produce more oil per acre. Stephen Long says, "We're looking at crops that can be grown on poorer land than soy and yet yield more oil per acre."
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Sprouts
The Packer (Lenexa, Kan., April 26) -- Research has again proven that the 1999 government recommended process for sanitizing sprout seeds is ineffective. However, there is agreement among many academics and growers about basic food safety measures they say would virtually eliminate the chance of pathogen-laden sprouts entering the supply chain. “It is too late if the seeds are not clean,” says Hao Feng, a U. of I. researcher in food and bioprocess engineering.
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The Plight of Bees
Minnesota . Publicradio . org (April 25) -- Professor Gene Robinson, director of the Institute for Genomic Biology and the University of Illinois Bee Research Facility, joins Marla Spivak, director of the Bee Lab at the University of Minnesota, to discuss the plight of bees on The Daily Circuit. An audio file of the show is available via the link.
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Genomics
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, April 25) -- A new technique U. of I. researchers developed to sequence the genomes of two champion bulls may provide for faster and less costly methods to breed genetically elite cattle.
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3-D Imaging
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., April 24) -- Real-time, 3D microscopic tissue imaging could be a revolution for medical fields such as cancer diagnosis, minimally invasive surgery and ophthalmology. A new computational technique developed by researchers at the Beckman Institute, led by Stephen Boppart and Scott Carney, both professors of electrical and computer engineering, could provide faster, less-expensive and higher-resolution tissue imaging to a broader population of users.
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Also:
News Medical . Net (Sydney, April 24)
e! Science News (Quebec City, April 23)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., April 23)

May Berenbaum
Scientific American (April 16) -- A brief profile of renowned U. of I. entomology professor May Berenbaum, how she chose her field of study, and her views on the common attributes among good scientists and good journalists.
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Guggenheim
Green Bay Press-Gazette (from USA Today; Wisconsin, April 13) -- Huimin Zhao, the Centennial Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois, has received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to continue his work studying human diseases. Zhao works to engineer proteins used in drug discovery and gene therapy as well as industrial biotechnology and bioenergy.
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Ethanol Costs
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., April 12) -- A new U. of I. study concludes that learning-by-doing, stimulated by increased ethanol production, played an important role in inducing technological progress in the corn ethanol industry. The study, co-written by Madhu Khanna, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics, and Xiaoguang Chen, of the U. of I. Energy Biosciences Institute, quantifies the role that factors such as economies of scale, learning-by-doing, induced technological innovation as a result of rising input prices and trade-induced competition played in reducing the processing costs of corn ethanol in the U.S. by 45 percent while also increasing production volumes seventeen-fold from 1983 to 2005.
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Illinois engineering professor awarded Guggenheim Fellowship
University of Illinois professor Huimin Zhao has received a 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Guggenheim Fellowships are awarded annually on the basis of achievement and exceptional promise. Zhao, the Centennial Chair Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is one of 181 distinguished scholars chosen from a pool of nearly 3,000 applicants.
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New antibiotic could make food safer and cows healthier
Food-borne diseases might soon have another warrior to contend with, thanks to a new molecule discovered by chemists at the University of Illinois. The new antibiotic, an analog of the widely used food preservative nisin, also has potential to be a boon to the dairy industry as a treatment for bovine mastitis.
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Team discovers how bacteria resist 'Trojan horse' antibiotic
A new study describes how bacteria use a previously unknown means to defeat an antibiotic. The researchers found that the bacteria have modified a common “housekeeping” enzyme in a way that enables the enzyme to recognize and disarm the antibiotic.
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Entomology
The China Post (Taipei, Taiwan, April 2) -- U. of I. entomology professor May Berenbaum comments on two new studies indicating a common pesticide may be implicated in the die-off of honey bees.
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Bees
The New York Times (March 29) -- In Thursday’s issue of the journal Science, two teams of researchers published studies suggesting that low levels of a common pesticide can have significant effects on bee colonies. One experiment, conducted by French researchers, indicates that the chemicals fog honey bee brains, making it harder for them to find their way home. “I thought it (the French study) was very well designed,” said May Berenbaum, an entomologist at Illinois.
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Also:
CBS News (from The Associated Press, March 29)

Research Tools
The Scientist (Philadelphia, March 29) -- The Broad Institute and Sanger Institute announced two new cancer cell line databases, the largest such repositories of genomic and drug profiling data to date that will provide researchers with a powerful new set of tools. “I think having two independent resources is a good thing,” says Jian Ma, IGB faculty member and U of I bioengineering professor who did not participate in the research. “If two different groups have the same result for one cell line, it would be more reliable.”
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Antibiotic
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, March 19) -- Food-borne diseases might soon have another warrior to contend with, thanks to a new molecule discovered by chemists at Illinois. The new antibiotic, an analog of the widely used food preservative nisin, also has potential to be a boon to the dairy industry as a treatment for bovine mastitis.
read entire article

Also:
Dairy Reporter (Montpellier, France, March 20)
Feedstuffs (Bloomington, Minn., March 21)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., March 19)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., March 19)

Bacteria
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, March 19) -- A new U. of I. study describes how bacteria use a previously unknown means to defeat an antibiotic. The researchers found that the bacteria have modified a common “housekeeping” enzyme in a way that enables the enzyme to recognize and disarm the antibiotic.
read entire article

Also:
Health Canal (Melbourne, Australia, March 21)

Lifelong Learning
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) is a campus program that offers classes, study groups, lectures and other educational opportunities to area residents older than 50. Membership in OLLI enables the students to engage in learning for the joy of it – which can include anything from courses in the arts and humanities to explorations of science and technology.
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DNA
Science 360 (Washington, D.C., March 13) -- The “RNA world” hypothesis, first promoted in 1986 in a paper in the journal Nature and defended and elaborated on for more than 25 years, posits that the first stages of molecular evolution involved RNA and not proteins, and that proteins (and DNA) emerged later, said U. of I. crop sciences and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, who led the new study. “I’m convinced that the RNA world (hypothesis) is not correct,” Caetano-Anollés said. “That world of nucleic acids could not have existed if not tethered to proteins.”
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Also:
BioTechniques (New York City, March 12)

iGEM
NSTA Reports (March 12) -- “I got involved in iGEM five years ago. It was our first team at the [University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)]. I was introduced to Aleem Zafar, a brilliant and very motivated undergrad [who] was interested in synthetic biology and had heard about iGEM,” recalls Courtney Fuentes Evans, laboratory supervisor for the Mining Microbial Genomes for Novel Antibiotics Theme at the Institute for Genomic Biology. “I knew nothing about iGEM, but I was really motivated by the students...They developed a project and won a gold at the competition.”
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Sensors
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., March 12) -- Researchers led by Samie R. Jaffrey at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City have developed a new sensor, based on RNA instead of protein, that can use fluorescence to image small molecules and proteins in living cells. This “alternative approach to image and study small-molecule metabolites is an important piece of work and will potentially have broad applications,” says U. of I. physics professor Taekjip Ha.
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Honeybees and Genetics
The New York Times (March 9) -- Some honey bees are known to be thrill-seeking adventurers. Known as scouts, they fearlessly leave their hives and search for new sources of food and new hive locations for the rest of the colony. Now, a new study suggests that these scouts have genetic brain patterns that set them apart from other bees. “We found massive differences in brain gene expressions between scouts and nonscouts,” said Gene E. Robinson, an entomologist and geneticist at Illinois, as well as an author of the study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Science.
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Also:
ArsTechnica (Boston, March 11)
Daily Mail (London, March 12)
Deccan Herald (from Indo-Asian News Service, New Delhi; Bangalore, India, March 11)
Discovery News (March 8)
Entomological Society of America (Lanham, Md., March 8)
Live Science (New York City, March 8)
Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, March 10)
Montreal Gazette (from Agence France-Presse, Paris; March 9)
Punjab Newsline (Chandigarh, India, March 11)
Red Orbit . com (Dallas, March 11)
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., March 8)
Scientific American (March 8)
The Epoch Times (New York City, March 12)
The Huffington Post (March 9)
The New Zealand Herald (Auckland, March 13)
The State (Columbia, S.C., March 11)
Time (March 9)
Wired (San Francisco, March 9)

Honeybees
Science News (Washington, D.C., March 8) -- That honey bee lazily probing a flower may actually be a stealth explorer, genetically destined to seek adventure from birth. To test the notion of whether bees have personality, scientists led by entomologist and geneticist Gene Robinson at Illinois focused on scout bees that embark on reconnaissance missions for food.
read entire article

Also:
Mother Nature Network (Atlanta, March 9)
MSNBC (March 8)
Science Now (Washington, D.C., March 8)
The Atlantic (March 8)

Cancer-Sniffer
BusinessWeek (March 1) -- Metabolomx, a 12-person company in Mountain View, Calif., appears on the fast track to bringing a cancer-sniffing device to market. Much of the technology behind the Metabolomx machine came from research done by co-founder Kenneth Suslick, a professor of chemistry at Illinois.
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Biofuel
Chicago Tribune (from The Associated Press, March 2) -- With the support of a $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, researchers led by scientists at Illinois will take the first steps toward engineering two new oil-rich crops. They aim to boost the natural, oil-producing capabilities of sugarcane and sorghum, increase the crops’ photosynthetic power and – in the case of sugarcane – enhance the plant’s cold tolerance so that it can grow in more northerly climes.
read entire article

Also:
Muscatine Journal (Iowa, March 2)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, March 1)
The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill., March 2)

Technology
Scientific Computing (Rockaway, N.J., Feb. 29) -- U. of I. crop sciences professor Michael Gray and colleagues conducted a survey of corn and soybean pests in 47 counties in Illinois from late July to early August in 2011, and found densities of some key insect pests to be at zero or near zero in many counties. “I’ve never seen anything like it in 22 years of doing this kind of research,” Gray said. “From an insect diversity perspective, it’s a biological desert in many of those fields.”
read entire article

Also:
Innovations Report (Bad Homburg, Germany, March 1)
Laboratory Equipment (Smithtown, N.Y., March 1)
ScienceNewsline . com (Feb. 29)

Illinois supercomputers, expertise to help determine winner of genomics prize
Beginning in January 2013, teams will compete to accurately sequence the genomes of 100 healthy centenarians within 30 days for less than $1,000 per genome. A $10 million prize will be either awarded to a single winner or divided among successful teams. The Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Medco is intended to inspire breakthroughs in genome sequencing that will lead to the creation of a "medical grade" genome that can be used to improve patient diagnosis and treatment.
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Lemelson-MIT $30,000 Illinois Student Prize Finalists Chosen
Announced today are the five finalists for the Lemelson-MIT $30,000 Illinois Student Prize for innovation. Finalists were chosen by a distinguished panel of entrepreneurs as well as faculty members and professionals from across Illinois campus. The Lemelson-MIT $30,000 Illinois Student Prize is funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program, which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995. Administered by the Technology Entrepreneur Center in the College of Engineering, the prize is awarded to a student who has demonstrated remarkable inventiveness and innovation.
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Photosynthesis
BBC (London, Feb. 22) -- A group led by U. of I. professor of crop sciences Stephen Long, the deputy director of the Energy Biosciences Institute at Illinois, is trying to improve the ability of plants to harness energy from the sun. And they’re using the processing power of the university’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications to do it.
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Speciation
e! Science News (Quebec City, Feb. 21) -- Researchers led by U. of I. microbiology professor Rachel Whitaker have evidence of sympatric speciation – whereby one organism divides into two divergent species while living in the same environment.
read entire article

Also:
Discover Magazine (Feb. 22)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Feb. 21)

Biofuel
Ecoseed (New York City, Feb. 21) -- A hybrid of temperate and tropical maize developed by U of I. crop sciences professor Frederick Below can be a potential contender in biofuel production.
read entire article

Also:
Phys Org . com (Isle of Man, Feb. 20)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Feb. 21)

Land Use
Environmental Research Web (Bristol, England, Feb. 20) -- Land-use change such as deforestation could cut crop yields by up to 17 percent by affecting the amount of moisture reaching key agricultural areas, according to U.S. scientists. That’s on top of the yield drop of the same magnitude it’s predicted that climate change may cause. “Nearly all of the moisture that falls as precipitation over these ‘breadbasket’ regions ultimately originates from and returns to the ocean,” says Justin Bagley, of the Institute for Genomic Biology at Illinois.
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Drug Development
MedCity News (Cleveland, Feb. 6) -- A newly formed U. of I. spinoff company could be on to something good with a new drug treatment for cancer that targets an enzyme commonly found in various tumor types. U. of I. chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother and a handful of other co-founders of Vanquish Oncology are developing compounds that selectively kill cancer cells by targeting procaspase-3, an enzyme that spurs reactions that kill the cancer cell when it’s activated. Procaspase-3 is present in many brain, breast, lung and colon tumors, Hergenrother said.
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Biofuel
Business Insider (New York City, Feb. 4) -- What makes seaweed special is that compared with land-based biofuels such as corn and sugar cane, it can produce up to four times as much ethanol per unit. Yong-Su Jin, of the U. of I. Institute for Genomic Biology, cautions, however, that “we still face a huge technical gap for large-scale cultivation.” Costs would have to come down five-fold before the process for converting seaweed could become commercially competitive with ordinary fossil fuels.
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Neurological Reserach
e! Science News (Quebec City, Jan. 25) -- A study led by U. of I. physiologist Rhanor Gillette has found a neurological circuit linking hunger with fear to be at the heart of quick decision-making by a simple form of sea life.
read entire article

Also:
Labspaces . net (Iowa City, Iowa, Jan. 25)
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan. 25)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Jan. 25)

Nutrition and Cognition
Food Processing.com (Itasca, Ill., Jan. 24) -- The U. of I. and Abbott Laboratories have established the first multi-disciplinary nutrition and cognition research center, which will be located in Urbana.
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Miscanthus
ACES News (Jan. 19) -- Concerns about the worldwide energy supply and national, environmental and economic security have resulted in a search for alternative energy sources. A new University of Illinois study shows Miscanthus x giganteus (M. x giganteus) is a strong contender in the race to find the next source of ethanol if appropriate growing conditions are identified.
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Phylogeny and beyond: Scientific, historical, and conceptual significance of the first tree of life
PNAS (Jan. 18) -- In 1977, Carl Woese and George Fox published a brief paper in PNAS that established, for the first time, that the overall phylogenetic structure of the living world is tripartite. We describe the way in which this monumental discovery was made, its context within the historical development of evolutionary thought, and how it has impacted our understanding of the emergence of life and the characterization of the evolutionary process in its most general form.
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Biofuels
Red Orbit . com (Dallas, Jan. 18) -- A team of U. of I. researchers has developed a computer model that could get biofuel crops to refineries more quickly and more efficiently. Agricultural and biological engineering professors K.C. Ting, Alan Hansen and Luis Rodriguez are cited, as is research professor Yogendra Shastri.
read entire article

Also:
Bioscience Technology (Rockaway, N.J., Jan. 17)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Jan. 17)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Jan. 17)

Archaeology 
Science Magazine (Washington, D.C., Jan. 13) -- Ripan Malhi, a professor of anthropology at the U. of I., questions whether recent genetic testing results accurately prove the geographic origins of the first prehistoric settlers to the Americas.
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Solar Energy
Phys Org . com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan. 16) -- U. of I. plant biology professor Donald Ort and a team of scientists have devised a new way to more accurately compare how efficiently plants and photovoltaic, or solar, cells convert sunlight into energy, which could ultimately help researchers improve plant photosynthesis, a critical first link to enhancing the global supply of food, feed, fiber and bioenergy.
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Biofuels
Columbia Daily Tribune (Missouri, Jan. 14) -- Miscanthus is a perennial grass that has seen its use as a biofuel rise in Europe, where fields have been known to return annually for decades. But the hybrid is sterile and does not produce seeds, so establishing it is expensive because the rhizomes were scarce. Tom Voigt, a professor of crop sciences at Illinois, has been studying the plant for years and pointed to Europe’s experience growing it and other studies that indicate a low risk for invasiveness. He said it could be possible for Miscanthus to spread, but because it is sterile it would do so slowly and could be controlled. “Boy, I’ve been growing it for more than 20 years, and I have never seen it in a place in my plantings where I did not plant it or want it to grow,” he said.
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Molecular Oxygen
News Bureau (Champaign, Jan. 11) -- University of Illinois crop sciences and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés and his colleagues identified an oxygen-generating enzyme that likely was a key contributor to the rise of molecular oxygen on earth.
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Land Use
News Bureau (Champaign, Jan. 9) -- University of Illinois plant biology and Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) professor Evan DeLucia and postdoctoral researcher Kristina Anderson-Teixeira developed a new way to calculate the potential climate impacts of land use changes, one that takes into account the greenhouse gas value and the biophysical attributes of different ecosystems.
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Novel Bandage
News-Medical.net (Sydney, Dec.16) -- U. of I. researchers have developed a bandage that stimulates and directs blood vessel growth on the surface of a wound. “Any kind of tissue you want to rebuild, including bone, muscle or skin, is highly vascularized,” says chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Hyunjoon Kong, a co-principal investigator on the study with electrical and computer engineering professor Rashid Bashir.
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Also:
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Dec. 15)
Also:
Cover feature Advanced Materials, Volume 24, January 3, 2012

Team Designs a Bandage that Spurs, Guides Blood Vessel Growth
News Bureau (Champaign, Dec. 15) -- Researchers at Illinois have developed a “microvascular stamp” that lays out a blueprint for new blood vessels and spurs their growth in predetermined pattern. The research team included Rashid Bashir, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; graduate student Vincent Chan; K. Jimmy Hsia, a professor of mechanical science and engineering; graduate student Casey Dyck; and Hyunjoon Kong, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; and postdoctoral researcher Jae Hyun Jeong and graduate student Chaenyung Cha.
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Gene Therapy
Phys Org.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Dec. 15) -- Clinical gene therapy may be one step closer, thanks to a new twist on an old class of molecules. A group of U. of I. researchers, led by professors Jianjun Cheng and Fei Wang, have demonstrated that short spiral-shaped proteins can efficiently deliver DNA segments to cells.
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Also:
News-Medical.net (Sydney, Dec.16)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Dec. 15)

Spiral Proteins are Efficient Gene Delivery Agents
News Bureau (Champaign, Dec. 15) -- Illinois researchers developed spiral polypeptides that can deliver DNA segments to cells with high efficiency and relatively low toxicity, a step toward clinical gene therapy. The team, from left, postdoctoral researchers Lichen Yin and Dong Li; Fei Wang, a professor of cell and developmental biology; Jianjun Cheng, a professor of materials science and engineering; and Nathan Gabrielson, a postdoctoral researcher.
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Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory (CNLM) Request for Proposals
The Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory (CNLM), established in a partnership between Abbott and the University of Illinois, requests proposals in a Grand Challenge research competition for interdisciplinary, team-based scientific research on the impact of nutrition on learning and memory in the human brain.
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Eight Illinois faculty members elected fellows of AAAS
News Bureau (Champaign, Dec. 6) -- Eight University of Illinois faculty members have been elected fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, including one affiliate and one faculty member from the Institute for Genomic Biology: Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Rashid Bashir, Debasish Dutta, K. Jimmy Hsia, Keith W. Kelley, Wilfred van der Donk, M. Christina White and James Whitfield.
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Sixth Annual Young Investigators
Genome Technology (Dec. 2) -- Jian Ma, CDMC faculty, was one of 25 individuals chosen by Genome Technology magazine as a 2011 Young Investigator, as nominated by senior principal investigators in their field. All of the researchers profiled are no more than five years into their first faculty appointment, working in areas as diverse as single-cell genomics, the role of microRNA in disease, and the uncovering of new biomarkers. Ma’s profile, Investigating Genomic Alterations, can be found on genomeweb.com.
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Cellular Research
Nature (London, Dec. 1) -- Many researchers venturing into single-cell analysis will be on their own, so techniques will have to become more auto­mated, integrated and kit-like, says Jonathan Sweedler, a chemist at Illinois.
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Last Universal Common Ancestor
The Daily Mail (London, Nov. 24) -- The ocean was turned into a global mega-organism 3 billion years ago before giving birth to the ancestors of all living things today, new research has revealed. Scientists are currently attempting to confirm the last universal common ancestor – the life form that gave rise to all others. This single organism has been called LUCA and is now traceable in all domains of life including plants, animals and fungi. Scientists believe that it was about 2.9 billion years ago when LUCA split into the three domains of life – bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. But little is known about what happened before the split. Research into this area is being carried out by U. of I. bioinformatics professor Gustavo Caetano-Anolles.
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Also:
Phys Org.com (Douglas, Isle of Man, Nov. 28)
The Hindustan Times (New Delhi, Nov. 26)

Insect Genome
PCT Magazine (Richfield, Ohio, Nov. 21) -- Scientists are gearing up to sequence the genomes of 5,000 insects and other arthropods, and what they uncover could change how the industry controls structural pests. The five-year, $15 million international effort, known as the i5k Initiative, has been called the Manhattan Project of entomology. “The genome is the source of a tremendous amount of information about an organism,” says Gene Robinson, a professor of entomology at Illinois. Data will help researchers better understand how to sustain organisms like honey bees and target vulnerabilities in pests.
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Converting Carbon Dioxide
Science (Washington, D.C., Nov. 18) -- Researchers led by U. of I. chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Paul Kenis and Richard Masel, of Dioxide Materials in Champaign, reported online in Science Sept. 29 that they’ve come up with a less energy-intensive way to convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide.
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Editor’s note: Kenis and Masel’s work is cited in the blue box.

Genetics
Genome Technology (New York City, October) -- U. of I. researchers have taken an unusual approach to studying the role of microRNAs in a deadly brain cancer. Animal sciences professor Sandra Rodriguez-Zas and her group developed a bioinformatics pipeline that allows them to look at all miRNAs, remove those that are not associated with the disease, and still look at multiple miRNAs to establish which ones are related to cancer survival. She and Kristin Delfino, a doctoral candidate at Urbana, are now extending this approach to ovarian cancer survival.
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Editor’s note: This site requires free registration after the first visit.

Cellular Research
United Press International (Nov. 1) -- U. of I. researchers say they’ve discovered how a cancer-causing bacterium attacks a cell’s energy infrastructure, ultimately causing the cell to self-destruct.
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Also:
e! Science News (Quebec City, Nov. 1)
News Medical.Net (Sydney, Nov. 2)
R&D Magazine (Rockaway, N.J., Nov. 1)
Science Codex (San Jose, Calif., Nov. 1)
Zee News (Noida, India, Nov. 2)

Chemistry
Chemical & Engineering News (Washington, D.C., Nov. 1) -- Researchers have started to realize that cancer drugs often have multiple ways of doing their jobs, says U. of I. chemistry professor Paul Hergenrother.
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Biology
Science Daily (Chevy Chase, Md., Oct. 26) -- Fei Wang, a professor of biology at Illinois, and colleagues have found a way to create melanocytes from the tail cells of mice, using embryonic stem cell-like intermediates called inducible pluripotent cells.
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Also:
Health Canal (Melbourne, Australia, Oct. 26)