News

2018-10-06 - Researchers at the University have designed an enzyme that helps decrease harmful chemical compounds and contaminants in the environment. The research was published on Sept. 14 and focuses on how the newly designed enzyme can transform sulfite, a chemical compound that can be harmful for the environment, into sulfide, another chemical compound that can improve the efficacy of catalysts.

2018-10-17 - Prof. Renske van der Veen is the recipient of a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering for 2018. The prestigious fellowship from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation provides $875,000 over five years for an early-career faculty member to pursue research. The Packard Fellowship, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, goes a long way toward boosting a faculty member’s...

2018-10-09 - The LAS Dean's Quadrangle Award was inaugurated in 2000 to honor people who have demonstrated profound support for the college’s diverse mission and who have personified throughout their lives and careers the unique benefits and responsibilities that define a liberal arts and sciences education. Previous recipients affiliated with chemistry include Audrey (BA, '89, religious...

2018-09-27 - Professor Rodríguez-López, analytical and materials chemistry, was listed in the most recent SN 10. The SN 10 is a list of the top 10 scientists to watch put out by Science News (Magazine of the Society for Science & the Public).

2018-09-27 - Congratulations to the WCC and YCC! The East Central Illinois (ECI) chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) received the following from the ACS:

2018-09-27 - Professor Prashant Jain was admitted by the Council to the Royal Society of Chemistry as a Fellow. RSC fellowships are the highest level of membership one can attain with the RSC. You must achieve a high professional standing and make a significant impact in the chemical sciences to receive this fellowship. Please join us in congratulating Professor Jain on his achievement. 

2018-09-26 - Oxford University Press has published a print copy of the ACS Symposium Series 1231: The Power and Promise of Early Research, edited by Desmond H. Murray, Sherine O. Obare, and Illinois Chemistry alumnus James H. Hageman (BS, ’64). After leaving Illinois, Hageman went on to complete his PhD in biochemistry at UCLA (1968), and was a postdoc at Yale University. As a faculty in...

2019-05-01 - Professor M. Christina White is the 2019 winner of the ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, one of the American Chemical Society’s highest National Awards. Prof. White joins a very impressive list of previous awardees, including Illinois faculty Nelson Leonard and Scott Denmark, and Nobelists such as R.B. Woodward and K. Barry Sharpless, who represent the most prominent...

2018-09-21 - The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the winners of their "Understanding the Rules of Life" awards. These awards fall under two different categories; Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER), and Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE). Professor Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten received the (RAISE) - Balancing demands of minimal cell...

2018-09-19 - A new study, published in Nature Communications, is from research by Wilfred van der Donk and a group of chemists from the University of Illinois and Harvard University.

2018-09-17 - Professor Lisa Olshansky joined the Department of Chemistry this Fall, 2018. She is a faculty member in the Inorganic chemistry area.  Meet new Assistant Professor Lisa Olshansky

2018-09-14 - Chemistry professor Yi Lu, left, and graduate student Evan Mirts have designed a new synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide – a notoriously complex multistep chemical reaction that has eluded chemists for years.

2018-09-14 - Zaida “Zan” Luthey-Schulten is an international leader in computational biophysics and bioinformatics.  She has been selected as a Fellow of the Biophysical Society in 2019. Zan’s early work, motivated by the discovery of magnetic field effects on chemical reactions on the first passage time description of diffusion-limited processes and polymer chain motion is now textbook material in...

2018-09-10 - As medicine becomes more precise in delivering treatment targeted to specific areas of the body, the drug used is just one critical part of the treatment. How can chemotherapy drugs directly impact a tumor in order to destroy it without damaging other areas of the body? Scientists and physicians have to consider the material that carries the drug to its target and the effects of that material on...

2018-09-10 - Jeff Moore and Joaquin Rodriguez are part of a team that recently were recipients of the Secretary of Energy's Achievement Award.