Yi Lu

The pivotal role of microRNA in diagnosing and monitoring cancer is well known by today’s researchers. “There have been a lot of studies in recent years linking the presence and concentration of specific microRNA sequences to clinical outcomes for people with advanced prostate cancer,” said Brian Cunningham (CGD leader/MMG), a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a program leader at the Cancer Center at Illinois.

As health and research institutions continue to rapidly develop new methodologies for detecting SARS-CoV-2, researchers have found themselves at both forefronts of discovery and featured on the cover of the Journal of the American Chemical Society with their paper "Label-free Digital Detection of Intact Virions by Enhanced Scattering Microscopy."

Move over, gene-editing proteins – there’s a smaller, cheaper, more specific genetic engineering tool on the block: DNAzymes – small DNA molecules that can function like protein enzymes.

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.

A fast, inexpensive yet sensitive technique to detect cancer markers is bringing researchers closer to a “liquid biopsy" – a test using a small sample of blood or serum to detect cancer, rather than the invasive tissue sampling routinely used for diagnosis.

Nine faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2018 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list, including four from the IGB.

The list recognizes “leading researchers in the sciences and social sciences from around the world,” according to Clarivate Analytics.  It is based on an analysis of journal article publication and citation data, an objective measure of a researcher’s influence, from 2005-17.