About the Cancer Center at Illinois
The National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center at Illinois unites world-class researchers who uncover fundamental knowledge, create new technologies, and enable cancer-free lives. Our robust expertise in science and engineering, exceptional facilities, and innovative educational experiences are changing how we fight cancer.
Who We Are
The Cancer Center at Illinois is the first center in the world dedicated to providing novel solutions for cancer research and care by converging fundamental research in engineering and basic sciences with oncology. Over 130 professors drive breakthrough discoveries with their world-leading expertise in advanced engineering, computing and artificial intelligence, veterinary medicine, and the chemical, physical, and life sciences. The center is pioneering new approaches to educate over 700 students and fellows each year, including under the emerging umbrella of “Cancer Engineering.” The CCIL translates its discoveries into human benefit in collaboration with local and national clinical partners, leading to new approaches to cancer interception and treatment.
Our Mission
Initiate and harness the combined power of engineering and basic sciences to transform cancer research, detection, and treatment.
Our Vision
To be a national hub for cancer science, engineering, and technology with transdisciplinary collaboration and coordination for research and education.
A Historic Milestone for Cancer Research in Illinois
The Cancer Center at Illinois has joined the nation’s most elite cancer research institutions — becoming only the eighth center in the country to earn Basic Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute, and the first to receive it in nearly 40 years.
#8
In the nation to receive this designation
~40
Years since the last basic cancer center designation
130+
Faculty across 8 colleges and 20+ departments
What the Designation Means
Fifteen Years of Investment, Now Amplified
NCI designation is the culmination of more than 15 years of sustained collaboration and institutional commitment. It is not simply recognition — it opens doors. The multi-year federal support that comes with designation will expand research capacity, accelerate the translation of laboratory findings into medical use, and strengthen the CCIL’s ability to share its engineering and scientific expertise with cancer centers across the country. These investments will scale what the CCIL does best: turning fundamental discovery into real-world solutions, and advancing the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s mission to serve the state, the nation, and the world.
The Only Designated Basic Cancer Center in Illinois
The Cancer Center at Illinois stands alone in the state — and among only eight in the nation — as a home for the kind of foundational cancer science that reshapes medicine. What the CCIL discovers today becomes the clinical standard of tomorrow.
Our History
The Cancer Center at Illinois began in 2011 as the Cancer Community, led by current Director Rohit Bhargava and a group of over 50 Illinois faculty. These initial members organized regular activities and enabled interactions among faculty through symposia, workshops, and thematic research groups. Within a decade, the community had grown to over one hundred Illinois faculty members, several hundred postdoctoral researchers, and Illinois students. Since then, the CCIL has sustained progress, including membership growth, initiation of research and education programs, regular symposia, increased collaboration, and shared resource growth.
As a result, the CCIL has made significant progress in research, cancer funding, and faculty hiring across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The goal then and now is to unite biologists and technologists, behavioral scientists and computational scientists, chemists, and engineers—all with one mission: to relieve the burden of cancer.