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Illinois IGB

Rashid Bashir

Illinois chosen to co-lead new CZ Biohub in Chicago

March 7, 2023

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has been chosen to co-lead the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago—a new biomedical hub—with researchers from Illinois, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. The three-university team was selected as part of a competitive application process (https://www.czbiohub.org/) for a research initiative explicitly focused on measuring human biology.


March 7, 2023


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Microelectronics give researchers a remote control for biological robots

January 20, 2023

First, they walked. Then, they saw the light. Now, miniature biological robots have gained a new trick: remote control.

The hybrid “eBiobots” are the first to combine soft materials, living muscle and microelectronics, said researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and collaborating institutions. They described their centimeter-scale biological machines in the journal Science Robotics.


January 20, 2023


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NIH BRAIN Initiative supporting development of a probe to monitor brain chemistry

May 23, 2022

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?


May 23, 2022


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An NSF Expedition in Computing: Mind in vitro - Computing with Living Neurons

April 22, 2022

The National Science Foundation awarded a 7-year, $15 million project to a multi-university team led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The resulting ground- breaking and path-finding research, entitled “Mind in vitro - Computing with Living Neurons,” will imagine computers and robots that are human designed, but living.


April 22, 2022


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Portable, point-of-care COVID-19 test could bypass the lab

August 31, 2020

As COVID-19 continues to spread, bottlenecks in supplies and laboratory personnel have led to long waiting times for results in some areas. In a new study, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign researchers have demonstrated a prototype of a rapid COVID-19 molecular test and a simple-to-use, portable instrument for reading the results with a smartphone in 30 minutes, which could enable point-of-care diagnosis without needing to send samples to a lab.


August 31, 2020


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New IGB Theme Develops Engineered Living Systems with Novel Functionalities

May 11, 2020

For years, artificial systems - such as robots and machines - have been used for industrial applications, making a tremendous impact on society. However, steady progress made by scientists could see the replacement of artificial systems with “Multi-Cellular Engineered Living Systems” (M-CELS) composed of living cells and extracellular matrices organized to perform novel functions absent in natural systems. 


May 11, 2020


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Faculty Receive Three NSF Rapid Grants For COVID-19 Testing

May 7, 2020

Three Nick Holonyak Jr., Micro and Nanotechnology Lab (HMNTL) and IGB faculty members have received NSF Rapid Response Research (RAPID) program grants, all of which aim to shorten the amount of time it takes to process a COVID-19 test. Current tests can take as long as five days for results to be returned to the patient. Although more rapid nucleic acid tests that can give a result within an hour have become available, there are reports of a high rate of false negatives among these tests.


May 7, 2020


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Inexpensive, portable detector identifies pathogens in minutes

April 23, 2020

Most viral test kits rely on labor- and time-intensive laboratory preparation and analysis techniques; for example, tests for the novel coronavirus can take days to detect the virus from nasal swabs. Now, researchers have demonstrated an inexpensive yet sensitive smartphone-based testing device for viral and bacterial pathogens that takes about 30 minutes to complete. The roughly $50 smartphone accessory could reduce the pressure on testing laboratories during a pandemic such as COVID-19.


April 23, 2020


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Researchers reverse engineer interaction dynamics of microbial communities

January 23, 2020

Scientific and public appreciation for microbes—and the key role their communal actions play in environmental health, food production, and human wellness—has grown in recent years. While initially considered to be static, uniform entities, microbial communities are highly complex and contain internal chemical swapfests that are in constant flux.


January 23, 2020


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