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News Archive

Alma Therapeutics partnership launches to accelerate translational research

Liz Ahlberg Touchstone

A new public-private partnership strategically positioned to translate breakthrough science into potentially life-saving therapeutics launched today…

Alma Therapeutics, a new public-private partnership between the U. of I. and Deerfield Management, aims to translate U. of I. research to meaningful clinical advances. Photo by Fred Zwicky

Research

Q&A: Does the future of food production start in the lab?

Marianne Stein

Producing food for a growing world population amidst climate change and supply chain constraints is a tall order. Is biotechnology part of the solution?
Lab-grown…

Illinois is at the forefront of precision fermentation, an emerging technology that can develop tailored food ingredients in the laboratory. Yong-Su Jin leads PreFerS, a research institute based in Singapore that focuses on bringing these engineered foods to market.

Research

IGB hosted third summer cohort of undergraduate researchers

Elizabeth Bello

For undergraduate students seeking to advance their education or career in STEM fields, gaining hands-on experience in a research laboratory can be a valuable and…

From left to right: Minxing Zhu, Frania Amaya, Zohreh Golshani, Dr. Esther Ngumbi, Lakiyah Smith, & Nhi Do at the research symposium.

Research

Illinois Researchers Engineer Enzyme to make Valuable Agricultural Chemicals

Julie Wurth

Nature is a remarkably good chemist. Inside every living cell, enzymes speed up chemical reactions, building, breaking apart, and rearranging molecules with a precision that…

Pictured from left: researcher Yi Zhou, Professor Huimin Zhao, researcher Yifei Ge

Research

AI model offers a faster way to explore how proteins move, study finds

Lois Yoksoulian

The proteins that keep the cells in all living things working don’t stay still. They bend and shift between shapes as they perform their jobs, but many tools for studying…

Diwakar Shukla, right, and graduate student Diego E. Kleiman worked together to map the moving parts of more than 18,000 proteins in the human body in less than two days, a feat that used to take months on a supercomputer. Photo by Fred Zwicky

Research

Illinois Researchers Explore Intersection of Imaging Technology and AI

Ben Libman

Understanding precisely what molecules are inside the body and how they are localized is not only an important scientific pursuit but also valuable for disease diagnosis and…

Pictured left to right: bioengineering professor Fan Lam, postdoctoral researcher Timothy Trinklein, and chemistry professor Jonathan Sweedler / Jenna Kurtzweil

Research

Bioengineering Lab Develops Innovative Method of Macrophage Imaging

Ben Libman

Immune cells are thought to play a major role in whether tumors respond to therapies, but there is no reliable way to monitor these cells in a tumor routinely over time during…

The visual abstract from the paper, entitled “Macrophage-Targeted Quantum Dots with Short-Wave Infrared Emission for In Vivo Breast Cancer Imaging,” published in Bioconjugate Chemistry.

Research

IGB Profile: Lizzie Bello

Claudia Lutz

Many kids are inspired by early participation in sports. Lizzie Bello was too, but maybe not in quite the way her coach anticipated. In the outfield during softball games, she…

Lizzie Bello is the science writer fellow at the IGB

Profile

Pollen study reveals the hidden history of grasses

Diana Yates

Scientists used machine-learning and super-resolution microscopy to overcome a challenge that has stymied research into the natural history of grasses for decades. Their method…

Plant biology professor Surangi Punyasena, left, former U. of I. Ph.D. student Marc-Élie Adaimé and their colleagues developed deep-learning methods for establishing the composition and diversity of fossil grass pollen samples. Adaimé is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian’s Office of Digital and Innovation. Photo by Fred Zwicky

Research