Regulation of Gene Expression

2024 Toogun Award winner recognized for exceptional research

2024-05-21

Six students sit on a white staircase in front of a blue sky.

Established in 2015, the Oyetunji A. Toogun Memorial Award for Excellence in Research is an annual award named in honor of Tunji Toogun, a PhD student in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology who passed away in 2007. The annual award recognizes CDB graduate students for their...

Meet MCB: Professor Jongsook Kim Kemper

2022-12-21

Dr. Kemper is Professor Emeritus of Molecular & Integrative Physiology. Her lab focuses on metabolic signaling and epigenomic control of metabolism and energy balance.

New faculty members begin teaching and research at U of I

2022-11-21

Roughly a dozen new faculty members in the College of LAS stand together for a group photo indoors.

The College of LAS is welcoming 38 new professors for the 2022-23 academic year. Their new positions range from clinical professors to assistant professors and an endowed position in more than 20 academic units, ranging from African American studies to economics, philosophy, statistics, and several...

Researchers determine Pol III “identity” as important regulatory mechanism and likely disease factor in cancer

2022-06-01

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a link between RNA polymerase III subunit composition and transcription, an advancement that has potential implications for future cancer research. Their findings were published in...

Decoding the molecular clock that controls neurogenesis in visual center of Drosophila

2022-04-01

The nervous system is made up of diverse cells that arise from progenitors in a specific time-dependent pattern. In a new study, published in Nature Communications, researchers have uncovered the molecular players involved and how the timing is controlled.

Meet MCB: Temirlan Shilikbay, cell & developmental biology PhD student

2022-02-22

PhD student Temirlan Shilikbay, wearing a U of I mask, holds up a slide and observes it.

The School of MCB is proud to highlight our graduate students, including Temirlan Shilikbay, now in his third year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is a PhD candidate in professor Stephanie Ceman's lab in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. The lab's goal is to study...

Meet MCB: Professor Brian Freeman brings molecular chaperone expertise to Illinois

2022-02-16

Brian Freeman, a professor of cell and developmental biology and Cancer Center at Illinois scientist, has focused his research on the study of molecular chaperones (MCs) since the beginning of his career as a graduate student when chaperones were thought to have no medicinal purpose. Now, the...

Researchers find new control mechanism for sugar metabolism in gut microbes

2021-08-31

Amanda Adams works in lab at anaerobic hood.

In a new University of Illinois study, researchers found that genes encoding a previously unstudied family of RBPs are highly expressed in many Bacteroides species. They also demonstrated that mutants of the prevalent human gut bacteria Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron that lacked RBPs exhibited...

Researchers identify mechanisms of controlling regeneration for two chromatin-remodeling complexes of Drosophila

2021-04-06

Illustrations - The fly Drosophila has two SWI/SNF nucleosome remodeling complexes, which control different aspects of tissue regeneration--growth and cell fate--as revealed by mutant phenotypes.

Rachel Smith-Bolton, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Illinois, leads an exciting research program on tissue regeneration. Her recent work uses Drosophila as a model to explore the effects of different chromatin modifiers on initiating, spatially controlling, and...

Researchers characterize the function of PaeA, a protein involved in Salmonella virulence

2021-03-26

Research image courtesy of Slauch lab: Certain stresses or conditions induce production or import of putrescine and/or cadaverine. Once stress is relieved, the polyamines need to be exported via PaeA. Failure to export leads to high polyamine concentrations that are lethal under certain conditions.

The regulation of polyamines is essential for the physiological function of organisms. Simplistically, polyamines are organic cations that interact with RNA, including ribosomes and translational machinery. Both the lack of and an excess of polyamines confer lethal phenotypes, though the molecular...

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