News

2013-02-22 - The Protein Society announces Professor Wilfred van der Donk as the 2013 Emil Thomas Kaiser Award recipient. The Emil Thomas Kaiser Award, sponsored in 2013 by a Society member who wished to remain anonymous, recognizes a recent, highly significant contribution to the application of chemistry in the study of proteins. Dr. Wilfred van der Donk (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) is the...

2013-01-31 - Professor Wilfred van der Donk will present the 2013 ACS Chemical Biology Lecture at the Spring 2013 ACS National Meeting in recognition of his contributions to understanding enzyme reaction mechanisms.

2013-01-29 - A team of U of I researchers (Hirata, Chemistry; Abbamonte, Ceperley, Ryu, and Wagner, Physics) in collaboration with chemists and physicists from Princeton and the College of William and Mary was one of seven chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to lead a center-type collaborative research program for computational chemistry & physics for materials.

2013-01-28 - Professor Hergenrother and coworkers report that tweaking natural products' rings and functional groups could lead to better compound libraries for drug discovery.

2013-01-22 - Professor van der Donk and graduate student Weixin Tang discovered some unexpected enzyme activity in the production of the protein cytolysin by Enterococcus faecalis. This research was highlighted by the UI News Bureau and in Nature Chemical Biology. For the UI News Bureau article by Diana Yates,...

2013-01-10 - Professor Mark Grinstaff, who has a joint appointment between the Boston University departments of Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering, was named a National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Charter Fellow in December 2012.

2013-01-08 - The Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) visual indicator technology developed by Professor Ken Suslick and colleagues is being adapted by the U. S. Army in collaboration with Scientific Technologies of Mountain View, CA to identify bilogical agents and test for the spoiling of food, among other uses. The biodetection technology news was recently reported by Kristen Dalton....

2013-01-07 - Researchers have discovered a new compound that restores the health of mice infected with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), an otherwise dangerous bacterial infection. The new compound targets an enzyme not found in human cells but which is essential to bacterial survival. The research team, led by scientists at the University of Illinois and the University of...

2013-01-02 - Wilbur J. Shenk, Jr., beloved husband of the late Jean, died in Naples, FL on Dec. 27, 2012. Born Erie, PA, 1918, graduate of University School, Exeter Academy, Princeton University, and University of Illinois, PhD in Organic Chemistry. Scientific researcher at the National Defense Research Committee. Employed at Harshaw Chemical, President of Paterson Leitch Co., director of EFCO, Inc., Trustee...

2012-12-31 - Sumit Ravindra Ashtekar (Gruebele Group) was presented the 2012 Materials Area Dissertation Award on May 8, 2012. The award, which includes a $200 check and a certificate, was presented by area head Professor Catherine Murphy. Ashtekar's talk was entitled "Visualizing Atomic Motions on Amorphous Surfaces".

2012-12-31 - Professor Yi Lu was named the 2012 winner of the Champaign County Innovation Celebration Discovery Award, sponsored by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation. The award recognizes an individual or group from the University of Illinois' Urbana Campus who has disclosed to the University's Office of Technology Management a groundbreaking discovery with potential for significant...

2012-12-31 - Professor Prashant Jain has been named one of seven researchers at UIUC to receive an Institute for Advance Computing Applications and Technologies (IACAT) Fellowship. The one year fellowship will enable Prof. Jain to pursue collaborative projects with the researchers and computer technology experts at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).Jain will work with NCSA’s Sudhakar...

2012-12-31 - A chemically altered osteoporosis drug may be useful in fighting malaria, researchers report in a new study. Unlike similar compounds tested against many other parasitic protozoa, the drug readily crosses into the red blood cells of malaria-infected mice and kills the malaria parasite. The drug works at very low concentrations with no observed toxicity to the mouse. The study appears in the...

2012-12-31 - The Department of Mathematics, Department of Chemistry, and the School of Integrative Biology are thrilled to announce the start of the Merit Fellows Scholarship Program this upcoming academic year!

2012-12-31 - Jonathan Sweedler's research developing the content profiles of individual brain cells has been highlighted in Medical Xpress and Bioscience Technology. The research has the possibility to trace the root causes of maladies such as memory loss and chronic pain and was presented last week at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. For more information...