News

2012-12-31 - Researchers in Sweedler and Kelleher research groups developed a new method to perform restricted proteolysis using outer membrane protease T (OmpT) for mass spectrometry-based proteomics. This work has been published in Nature Methods. According to Cong Wu, the first author on the paper, OmpT's narrower substrate specificity than traditional proteases and efficient catalytic...

2012-12-31 - Jessica Frisz (Ph.D. Chemistry, Kraft) was recently featured in a Chemical & Engineering News article about early career scientists in medical diagnostics. For the full article click here.  

2012-12-17 - Sulfur compounds in petroleum fuels have met their nano-structured match. University of Illinois researchers developed mats of metal oxide nanofibers that scrub sulfur from petroleum-based fuels much more effectively than traditional materials. Such efficiency could lower costs and improve performance for fuel-based catalysis, advanced energy applications and toxic gas removal. Co-led by Mark...

2012-12-17 - Qing Cao, a Research Staff Member at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, was identified as a “rising star transforming science and health.” He is working to use carbon nanotubes to create a new kind of electronics that will replace silicon and keep Moore's law from slowing down.

2012-12-13 - Matthew Hermes has been chosen to receive a prestigious ACS Graduate Student Award in Computational Physical Chemistry. He was selected as one of two winners after a nationwide competition sponsored by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This award is intended to encourage graduate work in computational chemistry, recognize research accomplishments and stimulate interest in the...

2012-12-11 - James "Jim" Fritz, 88, of Ames, passed away at his home under hospice care on Monday, December 10, 2012.   After having obtained his Ph.D. in 1948 by the University of Illinois, Professor James S. Fritz became Senior Chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Iowa State University in 1960. He was named Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1990. Besides ion chromatography his...

2012-12-06 - Richard Lowell Threet, age 88, longtime Anacortes, WA resident, formerly of San Diego, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, December 5, 2012, of natural causes. Mr. Threet was born November 17, 1924, in Browns, IL. He was the first son of Ivy C. and Daryl Threet. He was a graduate of the University of Illinois, where he received a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry in 1944 before serving two years in...

2012-12-05 - Moore and colleagues are applying their "automatic healing" technique in Li-ion batteries in an attempt to prevent thermal runaway. According to Patrick Glynn, DOE Office of Science, in his article "Preventing Laptop Fires and "Thermal Runaway,"" the technique was to coat either the anode layer or separator layer with heat-sensitive "microspheres," or tiny solid capsules, ranging from two to...

2012-12-04 - Five professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named Swanlund Chairs, the highest endowed titles on the Urbana campus. The new Swanlund Chairs are Eric Freyfogle, law; Sharon Hammes-Schiffer, chemistry; Thomas Huang, electrical and computer engineering; John Rogers, materials science and engineering; Stephen Sligar, biochemistry. “I congratulate our five new...

2012-12-02 - Charles Brockway Roberts, 94, of Midland, died peacefully on Saturday morning, Dec. 1, 2012, at his home at Bickford Cottage of Midland. Dr. Roberts was born in Kansas City, MO, on July 31, 1918, the only son of Francis Newell Roberts and Mathilde Eichhorn Roberts.

2012-12-01 - Professor Douglas Mitchell was named one of "Tomorrow's PIs" among a handful of young investigators identified as leaders in the field of genomics by Genome Technology. Mitchell was recommended by Professor Gene Robinson, U of I faculty member and Director of the Institute for Genomic Biology. Doug Mitchell loves antibiotics, but he says there must be a better way to treat disease....

2012-11-29 - Professor Martin Burke was chosen to receive the 2013 Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator. This $5,000 award sponsored by the Pfizer Endowment Fund annually recognizes an individual under the age of 40 who has demonstrated outstanding creativity in the field of synthetic organic chemistry. A nominee must have accomplished...

2012-11-15 - Ms. Kandis Gilliard is one of six recipients selected from a national pool to receive a 2013 Eli Lilly Travel Award. This award provides funding for female undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral fellows to travel between January 1 and June 30, 2013 to a scientific meeting and present their research. This is a highly competitive award and is a testament to Ms. Gilliard's achievements.

2012-11-15 - Professor Dr. Yuzhuo Li, Potsdam, NY, age 54, passed away after a sudden illness on November 14th 2012 in Mannheim, Germany, with his wife by his side. Arrangements are made with Garner Funeral Home in Potsdam, NY. Yuzhuo was born on February 28th, 1958 in Tianjin, China. He received his undergraduate degree in polymer chemistry from Nankai University and his doctorate degree in organic...

2012-11-14 - Associate Professor Benjamin McCall has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for integrative studies of the simplest polyatomic molecule (H3+), including its dissociative recombination, proton-swapping reaction with H2, and astronomical observations and modeling; and for the development of high-sensitivity, high-precision methods for molecular ion spectroscopy."