Rachel Whitaker

In light of long-standing inequities in STEM representation, many universities are now recognizing the value of diversity in higher education. Achieving such diversity involves creating an inclusive campus that welcomes scholars from different backgrounds, not only to foster a healthy intellectual environment, but also to provide role models to aspiring students. Faculty cluster hiring is an emerging practice in higher education, involving cross-campus collaborations to hire faculty working on interdisciplinary research topics.

Building molecules, studying symbioses between species, and exploring how life evolved

Established in 2014, the Jump Applied Research in Community Health through Engineering and Simulation (ARCHES) is an endowment partnership between Jump Simulation and Education Center at OSF HealthCare and the Grainger College of Engineering. The grant is awarded to help engineers and physicians combat problems in health care.

An interdisciplinary team of Illinois scientists is working with clinicians and community researchers to expand access to COVID-19 testing by providing pop-up testing clinics for agricultural workers and others at various locations in Rantoul, Illinois.

The Labor, Health, Equity, Action Project (LHEAP) is a team of interdisciplinary researchers from across University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, coalescing in the Infection Genomics for One Health theme at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. Its core members include Professors Jessica Brinkworth, Korinta Maldonado, Ellen Moodie, from the Department Anthropology and Rachel Whitaker, from the Department of Microbiology, as well as Gilberto Rosas, in the Departments of Anthropology and Latina/o Studies.

Just like humans, microbes have equipped themselves with tools to recognize and defend themselves against viral invaders. In a continual evolutionary battle between virus and host, CRISPR-Cas acts as a major driving force of strain diversity in host-virus systems.

The human gut is home to a dense and diverse microbial community that represents a vital component of human health, development, and disease states. Within those communities, phage-bacterial host interactions also shape the community and contribute to the constantly fluctuating landscape. However, phage-bacterial host interactions in the human gut have been largely underexplored. 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a five-year, $12.5 million grant to integrate biology to a collaborative team based in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The new institute, Genomics and Eco-evolution of Multi-scale Symbioses (GEMS), will include molecular, organismal, computational and theoretical approaches. 

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded grants to support the work of fifteen scientists as part of the Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative investigator program. This vibrant international cohort will receive five years of unrestricted support to pursue innovative, risky research that has high potential for significant conceptual and methodological advances in aquatic symbiosis.

Forty-two years after Carl Woese defined archaea as the third domain of life, scientists at the IGB are still learning about these ancient organisms in ways that could help us learn more about eukaryotes.

Over time, scientists have realized that archaea have close ancestral relationships to eukaryotes — the domain of life that includes animals, plants, and more.