CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois scientists are helping power plants run more efficiently, designing better, longer-lasting batteries, finding new ways to target cancerous tumors, and developing robots that can aid in construction, in agricultural fields and even inside the human body.
And that’s just in engineering!
Elsewhere at Illinois, researchers are boosting agricultural yields to feed a hungry world, exploring the links between nutrition and intelligence, discovering how land-use changes affect animal populations, and finding new ways to overcome the defenses of pathogenic bacteria and agricultural weeds.
Ongoing research, like that underway at Illinois, often pays unexpected dividends. Here are more examples:
Chemistry professor Martin Burke was working to synthesize complex chemical structures when he realized it would be easier to assemble them from simple chemical building blocks. His molecule-making machine is speeding up the process of pharmaceutical discovery.
Understanding papaya sexual reproduction allows scientists to enhance papaya production.
Plant biology professor Ray Ming conducted basic research on papaya sexual reproduction and found a way to alter the plants to increase yields of commercially viable fruit.
Kevin Jackson, a senior research scientist at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, is applying approaches developed to treat military personnel with head injuries to concussed athletes.
Atmospheric sciences professor Don Wuebbles and his colleagues are using their expertise to observe and predict climate trends in the Midwest and across the U.S., information that is vital to preparation for an uncertain future.
Research in the social sciences is also improving people’s lives. Social scientists are tackling poverty in Arab countries, discovering barriers to health among Latino populations, and exploring the long-term effects of drug use among adolescents.
Stories about how Illinois research benefits the region, the nation and the world are a daily occurrence at Illinois.
“Ongoing scientific research is essential to a healthy economy, populace and planet,” said Robert Jones, the chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, himself a plant scientist. “As a nation and as global citizens, we cannot thrive without continuing support for the kind of science going on here at Illinois and at our university peers across the U.S.”
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