New faculty members begin teaching and research at U of I

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...

Exploring RNA’s Binding Role in Liver Disease and Cancer

Headshot of Auinash Kalsotra.
Kalsotra’s research has focused on RNA, the workhorse cousin of DNA, which makes up the genetic instructions for living things. RNA is often viewed as important for messaging and other functions, taking DNA’s code and transporting it to and carrying out functions in cells. It’s often taken a back...

Researchers find new control mechanism for sugar metabolism in gut microbes

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...

Welcome to Professor Asma Hatoum

Asma Hatoum
Professor Hatoum was one of ten new faculty hires made in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the last three years. Hatoum is an assistant professor of microbiology and is part of the Microbial Systems Initiative.

Researchers uncover the role of a noncoding RNA in cell proliferation

Headshot of KV Prasanth
Kannanganattu V. Prasanth, professor of cell and developmental biology, and members of his lab investigate the regulation of gene expression and RNA biology with a focus on cancer. In a new article published in eLife, “The S-phase-induced lncRNA promotes cell proliferation by controlling YAP1/Hippo...