Biomarkers are small molecules of interest to researchers, because they can indicate underlying diseases, often even before symptoms even appear. However, detecting these markers can be challenging as they are often present in very low quantities, especially in the early stages of a disease. Traditional detection methods, while effective, usually require expensive components like prisms, […]

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 […]

 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]