News

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...

2024-08-26 - A doctoral candidate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois, Archana Verma, exemplifies the characteristics of an inclusive leader within her research group, her department, and across campus. Verma is not only committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, but is passionate about creating spaces and opportunities for those who are underrepresented, especially in STEM fields. “As...

2024-08-15 - Sixty-nine researchers received American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (ACS PRF) grants following the spring 2024 application process, including Benjamin Snyder, assistant professor of chemistry. Snyder said this award from the PRF will allow his research group to tackle some really exciting questions surrounding the formation of...

2024-07-30 - Researchers in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and in Chemistry at Beckman Institute combined single-molecule experiments, molecular dynamics simulations and quantum mechanics to validate their findings published in PNAS.

2024-07-29 - Joaquín Rodríguez-López has been named a University Scholar in recognition of excellence in teaching, scholarship and service. Rodríguez-López, is one of five University of Illinois professors at the Urbana-Champaign campus to be named to the scholars program, which recognizes faculty excellence and provides $15,000 to each scholar for three years to enhance their academic careers. The money may...

2024-08-12 - The Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society recognized three Illinois chemistry graduates for research excellence in the 2023-24 academic year. The 2024 awardees of the RSC's Certificate of Undergraduate Research Excellence Award are Zachary Burke (BS, '24) and Ethan Ramirez (BS, '24). The Certificate of Undergraduate Excellence is the Royal...

2024-07-12 - 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...

2024-07-08 - A Chemistry World feature about the chemistry of whisky, including the reactions of its ageing to testing for fakes, mentions Illinois chemistry Prof. Kenneth S. Suslick, Marvin T. Schmidt Research Professor of Chemistry, whose ‘optoelectronic nose’ technology was expanded upon and developed for identifying liquors.

2024-07-08 - Using nano-sized gold particles that are great light absorbers, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and their collaborators have discovered a faster way to transfer and boost charge to a semi-conductor, which could lead to more efficient methods of converting light energy into electrical or chemical energy.

2024-06-28 - The American Chemical Society has awarded Rebecca Ulrich of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign the 15th Irving S. Sigal Postdoctoral Fellowship for 2024–2026. Ulrich will conduct her fellowship studies with Deborah Hung of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA, starting in September. Ulrich is a PhD student advised by Prof. Paul...

2024-06-17 - Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, MIT, and Duke collaborate on the development of a simple intuitive tool that can predict the mechanochemical reactivity of C-C bonds in designing mechanophores.

2024-06-05 - As the head of the Cancer Nanomedicine Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Daniel Heller (PhD, '10) has rapidly become one of the preeminent young scientists in cancer science, but after college he became a middle school science teacher, which eventually led him to discover a passion for research.