CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Ryan C. Bailey, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois, has been named a recipient of the 2007 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. The award recognizes bold ideas from some of the nation's most innovative new scientists.

Created this year, the award supports promising new investigators who have proposed exceptionally creative research ideas that have the potential to produce important medical advances.

Bailey's award is $1.5 million in direct costs over five years. He will use his award to develop an ultrasensitive measurement technology to provide a picture of disease onset and progression at the molecular level.

The NIH Director's New Innovator Awards are being announced at the same time as the highly prestigious NIH Director's Pioneer Awards.

"Professor Bailey's research is indicative of the outstanding work taking place within our department of chemistry," said Richard Herman, the chancellor of the Urbana campus. "This is an institution with a great history of innovation - from MOSAIC to YouTube. Recognition of what Professor Bailey has accomplished and what it augurs for the future is a great source of pride for this institution."

NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni said, "Novel ideas and new investigations are essential ingredients for scientific progress, and the creative scientists we recognize with NIH Director's New Innovator Awards are well-positioned to make significant -- and potentially transformative -- discoveries in a variety of areas."

NIH selected the award recipients through a process that engaged 262 experts from the scientific community in identifying the most highly competitive individuals in each group.

Bailey earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1999 from Eastern Illinois University, and a doctorate in chemistry in 2004 from Northwestern University.

After a joint postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology and at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Bailey joined the U. of I. faculty in 2006.

Bailey is also affiliated with the university's Institute for Genomic Biology.

The National Institutes of Health, which granted 29 New Innovator Awards, comprises 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases.

Editor's note: To reach Ryan Bailey, call 217-333-0676; e-mail: baileyrc@uiuc.edu