Auinash Kalsotra, a professor of biochemistry, and Martha Gillette, a professor of cell & developmental biology, were among the dozens of researchers chosen to be part of the inaugural cohort of Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago Investigators. 

The 48-member group, which will focus on instrumented tissues, inflammation, and the immune system, includes researchers from Illinois, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago.

The biohub, which was announced in 2023, brings together researchers to develop technologies capable of making precise, molecular-level measurements of biological processes within human tissues. Understanding and treating the inflammatory states that underlie many diseases is its ultimate goal.

“The CZ Biohub Chicago is focused on high-risk, high-reward research, and the selection of these 16 Illinois investigators—from so many colleges and institutes across the university—underscores the breadth of research excellence on our campus," said Susan Martinis, the vice chancellor for research and innovation at Illinois.

Kalsotra explained that the investigators will spend the next three years exploring innovative ideas regarding immune function in the liver. His project will touch on three major areas of interest for the initiative: enhancing understanding of the biology behind inflammation; spatiotemporal studies of inflammation at the tissue level; and machine learning-based approaches to studying inflammation.

“My lab has been studying liver regeneration and repair under health and diseased conditions in animal models for many years, but probing inflammatory responses in diseased human livers is a relatively new line of inquiry for me,” he said. 

Kalsotra has teamed up with Yogesh Goyal, a professor of cell and developmental biology at Northwestern University, to address conceptual and technological gaps in the study of chronic liver inflammation. Together, they will develop new experimental frameworks that enable multi-scale cataloging and mapping of diseased cell states onto functional outcomes for chronic inflammation in human livers. 

Gillette will collaborate with Bumsoo Han, a professor of mechanical sciences & engineering at Illinois. Their goal is to develop a next-generation microphysiological system of neuroinflammation at the blood-brain interface, integrated with biosensors capable of spatial and temporal monitoring of the activations and interactions of microglia and astrocytes.

“I am thrilled to have this opportunity to collaborate and interact with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago Investigator Program,” Gillette said. 

The 16 Illinois researchers named to the inaugural cohort include:

• Indrani Bagchi
• Rohit Bhargava
• Qian Chen
• Martha Gillette
• Bumsoo Han
• Amy Wagoner Johnson
• Auinash Kalsotra
• Hyunjoon Kong
• Catherine Murphy
• M. Taher Saif
• Mei Shen
• Shannon Sirk
• Bradley Sutton
• Jonathan Sweedler
• Yurii Vlasov
• Ayelet Ziv-Gal

U. of I. colleges and research institutes represented in the Biohub cohort include the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Grainger College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Cancer Center at Illinois, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and NCSA.