The Chan Zuckerburg Biohub Chicago has announced its first cohort of investigators, 48 innovative scientists and engineers hailing from three partner universities, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University, and University of Chicago.
The cohort includes several Illinois chemistry researchers, Catherine J. Murphy, Mei Shen, and Jonathan Sweedler as well as two researchers who are affiliated with chemistry, bioengineering professor Rohit Bhargava and materials science and engineering professor Qian Chen.
The funding will enable investigators to perform high-risk, high-reward research on topics related to instrumented tissues, inflammation, and the functions of the immune system.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network is a group of nonprofit research institutes that bring together scientists, engineers, and physicians with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges on 10- to 15-year time horizons. The CZ Biohub Network focuses on understanding underlying mechanisms of disease and developing new technologies that will lead to actionable diagnostics and effective therapies.
CZ Biohub Chicago, which was announced in 2023, focuses on engineering technologies to make precise, molecular-level measurements of biological processes within human tissues, with an ultimate goal of understanding and treating the inflammatory states that underlie many diseases. It catalyzes collaboration between the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“The CZ Biohub Chicago is focused on high-risk, high-reward research, and the selection of these 16 Illinois investigators—from so many colleges and institutes across the university—underscores the breadth of research excellence on our campus," said Susan Martinis, the vice chancellor for research and innovation at Illinois.
U. of I colleges and research institutes represented in the Biohub cohort include the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Grainger College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Cancer Center at Illinois, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and NCSA.
The following Illinois researchers are part of the inaugural cohort: