2020-01-30
- ChBE professor Hyunjoon (Joon) Kong recently received two grants from the NSF to fund interdisciplinary research at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, including a look at how neurons and muscle cells communicate with each other and also to develop a drug delivery system for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. He will be collaborating with Martha Gillette, professor of Cell...
2020-01-16 - HIV-1 affects and kills millions of people globally, but not enough information exists regarding the types of cells that HIV-1 targets in different tissues or the virus’s mechanism of spreading throughout the body. Viruses often ride the body’s circulatory systems to scatter throughout an organism and appear in different tissues to infect cells; however, not much is known about HIV-1’s mechanism...
2020-01-13 - In biology, it is generally believed that a protein’s sequence determines its structure, which in turn determines its function. However, in the case of membrane proteins, the reality is more complicated than this simple statement. “In recent years, the importance of a protein’s local environment has been increasingly recognized, but the molecular-level details have not been quite clear”, says Dr...
2020-01-10 - On December 12, 2019, the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology held its annual Winter Holiday Party. Faculty, staff, and graduate students came together in the Alice Campbell Alumni Center to celebrate and recognize our successes throughout the year. Coordinated by Shawna Smith and Holly Mansfield, all were treated to a night of music, food, and games.
2020-01-07 - Scientists have developed new drug compounds that thwart the pro-cancer activity of FOXM 1, a transcription factor that regulates the activity of dozens of genes. The new compounds suppress tumor growth in human cells and in mouse models of several types of human breast cancer.
2019-12-31 - Professor Daniel Llano is a neurologist at the Carle Neuroscience Institute and has been a faculty member in the MIP department since 2010. He obtained his BS, PhD, and MD at UIUC before moving to Massachusetts to pursue his clinical training at Harvard Medical School. He later became a post-doctoral research fellow and instructor at the University of Chicago focusing on cognitive and behavioral...
2019-12-31 - Professor Lori Raetzman joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. Since joining, the Raetzman group has produced highly impactful work regarding the development and function of both the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. Over the past 14 years, students from the Raetzman lab have won many prestigious awards and training grants, and have gone on to careers in academia,...
2019-12-17 - The Tajkhorshid lab used computational microscopy to investigate how lipids can influence the structure and function of protein channels in cells. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
2019-12-13 - David Kranz, the Phillip A. Sharp Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Kranz will be formally inducted at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Inventors in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 10, 2020.
2019-12-10 - Graduate Student Daphne Eagleman in Dr. Nien-Pei Tsai’s lab has been awarded a 2-year Predoctoral Fellowship from the American Heart Association. This fellowship will support her thesis project to decipher the role of a ubiquitin E3 ligase Nedd4-2 in cellular stress-induced neuronal degeneration following ischemic stroke.
2019-11-22 - Catherine Christian (Molecular and Integrative Physiology) has been awarded a 2020-2021 Center for Advanced Study Fellowship. The Center for Advanced Study sheds light on interdisciplinary thought that starts conversation, inspires action, and transforms the world. Read more about the Center for Advanced Study here.
2019-11-15 - Scientists have simulated every atom of a light-harvesting structure in a photosynthetic bacterium that generates energy for the organism. The simulated organelle behaves just like its counterpart in nature, the researchers reported in a recent publication in Cell. The work is a major step toward...
2019-10-16 - The University is hiring six or more tenure-track faculty studying microbial systems or microbiomes, coordinated hires that will expand interdisciplinary microbial research and education across campus.
2019-09-30 - In response to seizures, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a network of flattened tubes in the cell that packages and transports proteins, triggers a stress response that reduces brain activity and seizure severity. The new findings, reported by Nien-Pei Tsai (Assistant Professor in Molecular and Integrative Physiology) on 26th September in PLOS Genetics, may have important implications for the...
2019-09-09 - The Biology, Experience, Scholarship, and Training (BEST) Program was established to attract exceptionally talented students to our undergraduate biology program. As a BEST recipient, incoming freshmen receive a scholarship and mentorship from the Director of the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Director of the School of Integrative Biology.