News

Pairing Two Effects for a Superior Biomarker Detection Method

Researchers from the Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) Program Leader Brian Cunningham’s lab in collaboration with researchers at Washington University have demonstrated a new capability to detect and count individual biomolecules at low concentrations. This technology may significantly improve the efficacy of current cancer detection and measurement methods.  Biomarkers play a significant role in diagnostics because their […]

Target Recycling for Ultrasensitive Detection of miRNA Cancer Biomarkers

Researchers set sights on prostate cancer with new, rapid biomarker detection method Feb 6, 2023 | Cancer Center News Cancer Center at Illinois program leader Brian Cunningham is joined by research project members, from the left, Xiaojing Wang and Skye Shepherd, who were co-first authors on the teams’ recently published research. Team members not pictured include: Nantao […]

Amplifying Quantum Dots and Single Molecule Sensing for Cancer

 8/22/2022 1:59:35 PM  Jenny Applequist for HMNTL Despite recent years’ dramatic improvements in cancer treatment, cancer remains second only to heart disease as a leading cause of death for Americans. But a new Nature Communications paper has reported exactly the kind of breakthrough that cancer patients yearn for: development of a highly sensitive new method for performing a […]

Skye Shepherd Selected for Young Innovator Award

July 20, 2022 Bioengineering graduate student Skye Shepherd was selected for the Young Innovator Award through the 2022 Young Innovator Program, offered and supported through the Catherine and Don Kleinmuntz Center for Genomics in Business and Society and Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. The recognition also includes $20,000 to be used further develop Skye’s […]

Early respiratory virus detection research among Royal Society of Chemistry’s top citations

6/23/2022 10:06:55 AM Kim Gudeman, HMNTL In 2019, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were working on a rapid test that could detect horse respiratory viruses in less than 30 minutes using a nasal swab and a smartphone. When the COVID-19 outbreak began later that fall, the team was able to pivot quickly to […]

1-minute cancer test using magnetic-plasmonic nanoparticles

January 27, 2022 By: Alisa King-Klemperer The detection and quantification of cancer-associated molecular biomarkers in body fluids, or liquid biopsies, prove minimally invasive in early cancer diagnostics. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed an approach that accelerates the detection of cancer biomarkers in samples taken at the time and place of patient […]

Direct Detection of Intact SARS-CoV-2 with PCR Sensitivity

New label-free detection technique digitally counts intact SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in saliva or exhaled breath As health and research institutions continue to rapidly develop new methodologies for detecting SARS-CoV-2, researchers from the Holonyak Micro & Nanotechnology Laboratory have found themselves at both forefronts of discovery and featured on the cover of the Journal of the […]

New Point of Care Diagnostic Instrument for Cancer Biomarkers

October 18, 2021 By: Ananya Sen Current medical diagnostics involve sending samples to laboratory facilities, which can be difficult and expensive. Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have designed a desk-sized instrument that can make the same measurements at the location where the samples are collected. For several years the Cunningham group has been […]

Introducing PRISM: Photonic Resonance Interferometric Scattering Microscopy

CUNNINGHAM GROUP DEVELOPS MICROSCOPE TECHNIQUE TO DETECT INDIVIDUAL VIRUSES FOR POWER RAPID DIAGNOSTICS CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A fast, low-cost technique to see and count viruses or proteins from a sample in real time, without any chemicals or dyes, could underpin a new class of devices for rapid diagnostics and viral load monitoring, including HIV and […]

Establishing the Center for Pathogen Diagnostics

9/30/2020, Kim Gudeman With COVID-19 infecting more than 25.1 million worldwide to date, the pandemic has underscored the need for cost-effective, accurate, and quick diagnostics. The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Zhejiang University are launching the Center for Pathogen Diagnostics (CPD) to create new detection systems that address limitations of current technologies, while leveraging the […]