2020-09-30
- University of Illinois researchers are leading the science behind a new global licensing agreement between the pharmaceutics company Bayer AG and the cancer drug development company Systems Oncology for a new breast cancer drug called ERSO.
2020-09-15 - In breast cancer tumors, a molecule produced when the body breaks down cholesterol hijacks the myeloid immune cells that normally arm T cells to fight cancer, a new study in mice found. Instead, the hijacked myeloid cells disarm the T cells and even tell them to self-destruct.
2020-09-14 - For years, the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology has offered undergraduates the opportunity to pursue hands-on research under the guidance of our accomplished faculty. But when the COVID-19 pandemic effectively shut down campus in spring, it was unclear how or even if undergraduate research could continue — particularly for the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program.
2020-09-14 - Bile acids are cholesterol metabolites that are well known for their role in fat digestion. Many liver diseases such as gallstones, fatty liver disease, congenital disorders lead to cholestasis, which is characterized as accumulation of bile acids in the liver. The Anakk laboratory at the University of Illinois investigated how the function and metabolic abilities of the liver are hampered during...
2020-09-10 - The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a five-year, $12.5 million grant to integrate biology to a collaborative team based in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The new institute, Genomics and Eco-evolution of Multi-scale Symbioses (GEMS), will include molecular, organismal, computational and theoretical approaches.
2020-09-08 - A new study uses magnetic resonance elastography to compare the stiffness of the hippocampus in patients who have epilepsy with healthy individuals. The technique can improve the detection and characterization of the disease.
2020-09-02 - Faculty in the University of Illinois School of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Department of Biochemistry are remembering the late Professor Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, who passed away on July 10, 2020, in Chicago.
2020-08-31 - Congratulations to University of Illinois professor Asma Hatoum-Aslan, who was recently named a 2020 Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
2020-08-18 - In a recent publication, the lab of Steven Blanke, Professor of Microbiology and Ralph S. Wolfe Professorial Scholar, has introduced a new approach for observing the effects of the microbe Helicobacter pylori’s single protein toxin, called the vacuolating cytotoxin, or VacA, in the absence of infection. This is an important step towards determining the role of H. pylori’s toxin during gastric...
2020-08-04 - As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, scientists and health care providers are seeking ways to keep the coronavirus from infecting tissues once they’re exposed. A new study suggests luring the virus with a decoy – an engineered, free-floating receptor protein – that binds the virus and blocks infection.
2020-07-24 - iVenture is a year-long program that aids student entrepreneurs from across campus to develop their startup ideas. The program provides students with multiple resources and support to help their venture succeed.
2020-07-15 - Breast cancer patients are 60 percent more likely to die of cancer after surviving a heart attack, according to a new study published in Nature Medicine.
2020-07-14 - Nearly two percent of pregnant women will face recurrent miscarriages, defined as the spontaneous loss of three or more consecutive pregnancies. Of that two percent, half of those miscarriages cannot be explained. Scientists assume genetic factors may play a role, but to date they have not been able to describe why those miscarriages occur. To combat this issue, University of Illinois researchers...
2020-07-07 - A collaborative effort at the University of Illinois to support COVID-19 testing is winding down, but not before it produced enough materials to support some 200,000 coronavirus tests across the state.
2020-06-29 - A method known as CAR-T therapy has been used successfully in patients with blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia. It modifies a patient’s own T-cells by adding a piece of an antibody that recognizes unique features on the surface of cancer cells. In a new study, researchers report that they have dramatically broadened the potential targets of this approach – their engineered T-cells attack...