Hee-Sun Han

As we age, our bodies change and degenerate over time in a process called senescence. Stem cells, which have the unique ability to change into other cell types, also experience senescence, which presents an issue when trying to maintain cell cultures for therapeutic use. The biomolecules produced by these cell cultures are important for various medicines and treatments, but once the cells enter a senescent state they stop producing them, and worse, they instead produce biomolecules antagonistic to these therapeutics.

Sihai Dave Zhao (GNDP), an associate professor of statistics, has been appointed the Director of Computational Genomics at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

Zhao has been a member of the IGB for over eight years, joining the year he came to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the IGB he develops analysis strategies for genomic data, improves statistical applications in biology, and studies spatial transcriptomics and behavioral genomics.

Hee-Sun Han (GNDP/IGOH), a Mark A. Pytosh Scholar and an assistant professor of chemistry, has received the Amy L. Devine Award for her willingness to "go above and beyond" to ensure that her students are understanding the concepts she is teaching in her class.