News

Features

Paul Hergenrother: Finding New Targets by Way of Novel PathwaysMany drugs aim at the same target and are either minor improvements or work in a different way. And, while there is some rationale for developing new drugs for old targets, Paul Hergenrother has an entirely different goal.

Sheng Zhong: Comparing Gene Regulatory Networks Across SpeciesSheng Zhong, a member of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering Research Theme, is leading a group that has pioneered looking at the GRNs of embryos before they are implanted in the uterine wall.

IGB Researcher John Gerlt to Lead $33.9 million GrantA team of researchers led by University of Illinois biochemistry professor John A. Gerlt has received a five-year, $33.9 million grant from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences to study the functions of unknown enzymes.

Andrew Leakey: Harnessing the Power of PhotosynthesisWhen school children learn multiplication tables and grammar - before they move on to calculus and physics - they also learn about photosynthesis. In Andrew Leakey's case, the concept of photosynthesis grabbed him by the throat and didn't let go.

Sua Myong: Shedding Light on Single MoleculesSua Myong, a member of the Precision Proteomics theme at the IGB, is in the business of shifting paradigms, one molecule at a time. Myong, who is also a member of the bioengineering faculty, uses imaging techniques such as FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) to help understand what is happening to single molecules during various cellular processes.

Rachel Whitaker: Geography influences microbe genetic diversityMost microbiologists sequence genes in order to determine what a given gene does. Rachel Whitaker, a member of the biocomplexity theme, would like to know: "How do microbes, specifically Archaea, evolve?" By comparing sequences across a particular microbe found in various geographical areas, Whitaker may be on her way to finding out how microbe diversity developed.

Hyun Joon Kong: Revascularization in Service of Tissue RegenerationCivil engineering is not the most traditional route to tissue regeneration research, but that is how chemical and biomolecular engineering professor and IGB researcher Hyun Joon Kong began his journey.

Doug Mitchell: Removing Bacteria From Between Rock and Hard PlaceMitchell, one of the newest faces in the halls of IGB, has asked: what if, instead of killing bacteria, we simply disarm them, rendering them harmless? The beauty of this approach, says Mitchell, is that bacteria are far less likely to develop resistance than with the traditional techniques.

Mary Schuler: Targeting Malaria at the Molecular LevelMalaria is a nightmare worldwide, affecting over 400 million people each year. Other vector-borne diseases like yellow fever and West Nile are similarly destructive, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where many strains of mosquitoes have become resistant to the chemicals used to control them-particularly the synthetic pesticide DDT.

Bryan Endres: The Legal Implications of Biofuels, Other CropsBryan Endres’s exploration of the legal issues surrounding biofuels and genetically modified plants is tightly integrated with the efforts of IGB scientists to unlock the key to commercial production of cellulosic ethanol.

Bryan White: Breaking Down Barriers to BiofuelsWhat do cows and termites have in common? “Nada, zip, zilch,” most people would say. But Bryan White, a professor of animal sciences and a member of the Molecular Bioengineering of Biomass Conversion and Host-Microbe Systems themes at IGB, would say, “not so fast.” Cows and termites both digest plant cell walls—cows specialize in grasses, of course, and termites in wood. That makes them both “ligno-cellulosic deconstruction systems.”

Rebecca Stumpf: What Makes Us Human?Rebecca Stumpf became a biological anthropologist because she was curious about the relationship between humans and other primates."Biological anthropology is a very diverse, and at the same time unified, field in the sense that it is trying to get at that important question of what makes us human and how are we different from and similar to the other primates," she says.

Lisa Stubbs: Exploring What Makes Us Different "You can do things with mice that you can't do with other model species," says Stubbs. "I'm hoping that my colleagues and I can go after problems together and that my mouse expertise will really help. Our transcription factors work puts us squarely into the field of epigenetics, which is something both Gene (Robinson) and David (Clayton) are very interested in, in terms of learning, behavior and synaptic plasticity."

Paul Kenis: Engineering Tools to Enable Biological StudiesMany members of the scientific community who know of Paul Kenis’ work in, among other things, microfuel cells, might be surprised to find him affiliated with the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering (ReBTE) theme at IGB. For Kenis, however, it is a logical extension of his research interests. Kenis, a chemical engineer, says that his expertise in what he describes as “control over transport phenomena” can be applied to many big questions, whether of a chemical or a biological nature.

Bill Metcalf: Engineering Tools to Enable Biological StudiesMetcalf set out to understand how this compound, one of a group known as phosphonates, is made in nature by bacteria. He was interested in that process partly because some phosphonates have antibiotic properties. Recently, Metcalf and his lab successfully identified and sequenced the genes and identified the processes by which bacteria make this particular phosphonate compound (FR900098). His results are reported in the August 25 issue of Chemistry & Biology.

Ping Ma: Letting the Data SpeakCell biology experiments that used to take months now take one day, the number of labs doing bench science has exploded, as have the number of research techniques available and, to top it all off, the Internet makes sharing data as easy as clicking a mouse. Gene sequencing alone has generated so much DNA data that making sense of it all is a Herculean task. So what are we to do with this embarrassment of riches?