2024-10-02 - For typical illnesses, the body’s immune system is a robust, pathogen-killing machine. It provides a general defense against harmful germs while also adapting and producing antibodies that target specific bacteria or viruses. After fighting off an infection like the flu, the body produces regulatory T cells, also known as Tregs. These cells send signals to slow down the immune system, usually an...

2024-09-18 - The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded a $5.6 million grant to the Neuroproteomics & Neurometabolomics Center on Cell-Cell Signaling. Established in 2005 at Illinois, the Center is a designated NIDA Center of Excellence that provides expertise and technologies to support researchers who require state-of-the-art...

2024-09-18 - In a 1994 alumni profile story, Dr. David Milligan (MS, ’65; PhD, ’67) expressed his belief that hard work and the rational application of science would continue to pay off in years to come. “In the future, industry will be scrambling to hire high quality talent. There is a tremendous need for more scientifically literate students evolving through the system,” said Milligan, who was Abbott...

2024-09-12 - Taking inspiration from enzymes, chemists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a catalyst to simplify the synthesis of ethers, key functional components of many drugs, foods, personal care items and other consumer goods. The catalyst puts the two chemical ingredients in just the right proximity and position to come together, bypassing the need for the steps and quantities...

2024-09-06 - In her first month on campus as the new Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Chemical Sciences, Raylene Gomez Hernandez continues to meet with various faculty, staff, and students to get acclimated to her new position. “The most exciting part of this new journey is the wonderful opportunity of meeting students and collaborating with all the awesome staff and faculty in...

2024-08-26 - Three graduate students in chemistry and a materials science and engineering student in a chemistry research group have been recognized with awards from the American Chemical Society for their leadership in one of three areas — mentoring, research safety, or diversity, equity, inclusion and respect. Leadership in Mentoring: This recognition category highlights outstanding...

2024-08-30 - A major project launched in early 2024 features the renovation of a 6,000 square foot area on the second floor of Noyes Laboratory where the School of Chemical Sciences is leading the modernization of undergraduate labs, including advanced organic and inorganic lab facilities, equipment and curriculum to better prepare its students for successful careers in chemistry. One half of this state-of-...

2024-09-04 - Wilfred A. van der Donk has won the 2025 Alfred Bader Award in Bioorganic or Bioinorganic Chemistry, a national award administered by the American Chemical Society. His research focuses on the discovery and design of new antibiotics and natural products, focusing on projects that combine synthetic organic and protein chemistry to address problems at the interface of chemistry and biology. ...

2024-09-04 - With a natural enzyme as inspiration, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have designed an artificial enzyme that converts methanol to formaldehyde in a process that has the potential to massively reduce energy use in the commercial production of this prevalently used chemical. The artificial metalloenzyme (ArM) created by chemistry professor Lisa Olshansky and graduate...

2024-09-03 - At the University of Tokyo, Dinh Thanh Nguyen participated in undergraduate research on the discovery of enzymes that enhance the cell membrane permeability of cyclic peptides. That experience, Nguyen said, sparked his interest in enzyme discovery and led him to discover the work of Illinois chemistry professors Wilfred van der Donk and Doug Mitchell, who are leading experts in natural product...

2024-09-03 - Today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the creation of two new Energy Innovation Hubs. One of the national hubs, the Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), is led by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and co-led by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)....

2024-08-28 - Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool for researchers, but with a significant limitation: The inability to explain how it came to its decisions, a problem known as the “AI black box.” By combining AI with automated chemical synthesis and experimental validation, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has opened up the black box to find the...

2024-08-28 - A newly funded U.S. National Science Foundation iBioFoundry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will build on more than a decade of research at the U. of I. to integrate synthetic biology, laboratory automation and artificial intelligence to advance protein and cellular engineering. This is one of five new biofoundries to be established in the U.S.  According to the NSF, these...

2024-08-26 - The Department of Chemistry is welcoming three new tenure-track faculty members this academic year. Joomyung “Vicky” Jun joined the department as an assistant professor in August, and Xiaotang Lu and Mayuko Isomura will officially start as assistant professors in January 2025. Jun, Lu, and Isomura come to Illinois following exceptional postdoctoral research experiences at prestigious...

2024-08-26 - CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Using evolution as a guiding principle, researchers have successfully engineered bacteria-yeast hybrids to perform photosynthetic carbon assimilation, generate cellular energy and support yeast growth without traditional carbon feedstocks like glucose or glycerol. By engineering photosynthetic cyanobacteria to live symbiotically inside yeast cells, the bacteria-yeast hybrids can...