Jonathan Sweedler (BSD/CABBI/MMG), a professor of chemistry, and Fan Lam (GNDP), a professor of bioengineering, outlined how spatial omics technologies can reveal the molecular intricacy of the brain at different scales.

Similar to how cells within human tissues communicate and function together as a whole, bacteria are also able to communicate with each other through chemical signals, a behavior known as quorum signaling (QS). These chemical signals spread through a biofilm that colonies of bacteria form after they reach a certain density, and are used to help the colonies scavenge food, as well as defend against threats, like antibiotics.

Jonathan Sweedler (BSD/CABBI/MMG), Professor in Chemistry and the Neuroscience Program and a research member with the Cancer Center at Illinois’ JumpStart Program, was recently awarded a $1.5 million NIH grant for the installation of a high-end mass spectrometer which will allow Jonathan’s lab to provide Illinois faculty and other NIH researchers with more sensitive and informative single-cell and tissue imaging experiments. Interview with Prof. Sweedler follows.

Exercise looks a little different en route to the Red Planet, so Professor Marni Boppart (RBTE) got creative. Boppart and her colleagues received $1 million from the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, a NASA-funded institute, to explore the regenerative power of cells in space. Their research will help protect human health aboard Orion, the spacecraft destined to ferry astronauts from the Earth to the moon and Mars.

Pancreatic islets are mini-organs that make and release insulin and several other peptide hormones to control our glucose levels. Although various studies have previously looked at how pancreatic cells communicate with each other, the exact nature of these chemical signals has remained unknown. In a new study, researchers have measured a new set of molecules to determine how these cell-to-cell change in healthy and type 2 diabetes-affected islets to identify therapeutic targets.  

The human brain remains mysterious, and any progress towards solving that mystery may bring enormous benefits. For one thing, millions of people are afflicted with brain disorders that today are poorly understood and often difficult to treat.

How much light could be shed if we had a technology for making chemical “movies” of brain activity, showing “frame” by “frame” how brain chemistry changes over time—for example, during an epileptic seizure, or in response to delivery of a drug?

Scientists have developed a promising new method to combat the age-related losses in muscle mass that often accompany immobility after injury or illness. Their technique, demonstrated in mice, arrests the process by which muscles begin to deteriorate at the onset of exercise after a period of inactivity.

They report their findings in the Journal of Physiology.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign can now rapidly isolate and chemically characterize individual organelles within cells. The new technique tests the limits of analytical chemistry and rapidly reveals the chemical composition of organelles that control biological growth, development and disease.

Scientists engineering valuable microbes for renewable fuels and bioproducts have developed a fast, efficient way to identify the most promising varieties.