News Archive
Virus-bacteria coevolution solves diversity paradox by 'Killing the Winner'
Siv Schwink
There is remarkable biodiversity in all but the most extreme ecosystems on Earth. When many species are competing for the same finite resource, a theory called competitive…
Reach out and feed someone: Automated system finds rapid honey bee networks
Claudia Lutz
“Only connect”—E. M. Forster’s pithy quotation captures an essential feature of any society, human or animal: the patterns of interactions among individuals out of which…
Unsuspected flexibility offers new pathway to cancer drug development
Claudia Lutz
Illinois research uncovers cross-system signaling activity by growth factors that direct blood vessel growth and influence the progression of cancer, stroke recovery, and other…
Alumnus funds graduate students researching brain tissue cultures
Emily Scott
Scott Fisher believes learning how to solve a problem can be as valuable as solving one.
This belief is what drove him to create a fund that will support IGB research in…
Researchers establish long-sought source of ocean methane
Anne Trafton, MIT News Office, and Claudia Lutz
An abundant enzyme in marine microbes may be responsible for production of the greenhouse gas.
The following is a modified version of an article that originally appeared on MIT…
BIomarker Vol. 11 Now Available
Biomarker, the annual IGB magazine, is now available! Featuring selected articles on the research, outreach, faculty and accomplishments from the past year, a copy can be…
Team receives funding to study bacterial community dynamics
Bioengineering communications office
There is still much to understand about the dynamics of bacterial communities in the human gut, as well as how bacteria behave en masse in a biofilm, a collective of…
Viruses share genes with organisms across the tree of life
Diana Yates
A new study finds that viruses share some genes exclusively with cells that are not their hosts. The study, reported in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, adds to the…
In microbe populations, bioengineers find balance of opposing genomic forces
Claudia Lutz
Sergei Maslov, a professor of bioengineering and physics at the University of Illinois, sees a “universe in a grain of sand.” His research seeks to explore that universe by…
A new way to do metabolic engineering
Emily Scott
A novel method developed by a group of IGB researchers could change the way metabolic engineering is done.
Researchers from the IGB’s Biosystems Design theme, including…
Cancer drug starts clinical trials in human brain-cancer patients
Diana Yates
A drug that spurs cancer cells to self-destruct has been cleared for use in a clinical trial of patients with anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare malignant brain tumor, and…
Light green plants save nitrogen without sacrificing photosynthetic efficiency
Claire Benjamin
The top leaves of crops absorb far more light than they can use, starving lower leaves of light. Scientists designed plants with light green leaves with hopes of allowing more…