Skip to main content

Tech + Society

Tech + Society

New technologies launched the genomic era. Now, progress in genomic research depends on further innovations in the tools that allow us to probe, manipulate, and analyze biological molecules. Whether focused on software or hardware, biomaterials or microfluidics, DNA editors or molecular motors, our technological research pushes the boundaries of the physically possible and paves the way for future discovery.

Featured Stories

Cecilia Leal, professor of materials science engineering at Illinois, is an expert in how actual biomembranes work and in the tools to characterize them.
EZSpecificity combines extensive new enzyme-substrate docking data and a new machine learning algorithm to predict the best pairing for making a desired product, with up to 91.7% accuracy. Illinois professor Huimin Zhao led the study
Left image: First author of the study Xuenan Mi received an award in 2024 for her work on LassoESM. Right image: Professor Doug Mitchell, Professor Diwakar Shukla, and Susanna Barrett
 Joseph Irudayaraj      Founder Professor in Bioengineering
Senator Dick Durbin (left center) visits the Bee Research Facility, with Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation Susan Martinis (left), IGB Director Gene Robinson (right center) and entomology professor and co-director of the Illinois Bee Research Facility Adam Dolezal.
With his colleagues at Oregon State University and Utah State University, U. of I. plant biology professor James O’Dwyer developed a model that can predict changes in tree abundance over time. Photo by Michelle Hassel