As COVID-19 infects millions worldwide, the pandemic has underscored the need for cost-effective, accurate, and quick diagnostics, and the Center for Pathogen Diagnostics will seek to create new detection systems that address limitations of current technologies, while leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze disease trends, analyze sensor data, and predict future outbreaks.

Research in the laboratories of Paul Hergenrother and U of I biochemistry professor David Shapiro was the first to show that this compound can effectively target and kill certain cancer cells. It is now the subject of a new global licensing agreement between the pharmaceutical company Bayer AG and the cancer drug development company Systems Oncology LLC.

The publication's series focusing on eight "Holy Grails" of chemistry explains how the White research group's work is one of a group of discoveries that has “contributed to a blossoming of the field of C–H activation.”