A Molecular Lego Kit for Kinase Inhibitors

Principal Investigator:

• Martin Burke, Professor, Chemistry

Research Team:

• Emad Tajkhorshid, Professor, Biochemistry

Targeting the bidirectional crosstalk between gut microbial metabolism and bile acids to alleviate intestinal and liver tumorigenesis

Principal Investigator:

• Christopher Gaulke, Assistant Professor, Pathobiology

Research Team:

• Sayeepriyadarshini Anakk, Associate Professor, Molecular & Integrative Physiology
• Collin Kieffer, Assistant Professor, Microbiology
• Bo Wang, Assistant Professor, Comparative Biosciences

Engineering Mechanical and Chemical Gradients to Control Cancer Cell Metastasis

 Principal Investigator:

• Catherine Murphy, Professor, Chemistry

Research Team:

• Taher Saif, Professor, Mechanical Sciences and Engineering

Versatile redox detection of a-glycosylated proteins in blood, a potential universal biomarker for robust cancer detection

Principal Investigator:

• Joaquin Rodriguez Lopez, Associate Professor, Chemistry

Research Team:

• Brian Cunningham, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Associate Professor, Food Science and Human Nutrition

Molecular Dynamics Modeling of Target Recycling Amplification for Ultrasensitive Detection of RNA-based Cancer Biomarkers

Principal Investigator:

• Emad Tajkhorshid, Professor, Biochemistry

Research Team:

• Brian Cunningham, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Optogenetic modulation of the tumor microenvironment to improve cancer immunotherapy

Principal Investigator:

• Kai Zhang, Associate Professor, Biochemistry

Research Team:

• Erik Nelson, Molecular and Integrative Physiology

 

Delineating the Role of Orc6 in Genome Surveillance and Cancer Progression

Principal Investigator:

• Supriya Prasanth, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology

Research Team:

• Satish K. Nair, Department of Biochemistry

FORce Control of Cancer Tumor μEnvironment (FORCE)

Principal Investigator:

• M. Taher Saif, Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering

Research Team:

• Kimberly Selting, Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine
• Kannanganattu V. Prasanth, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology
• Hyunjoon Kong, Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

High-Resolution Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging for Adaptive Glioblastoma Multiforme Patient Treatment

Principal Investigator:

• Hua Li, Department of Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Fan Lam, Department of Bioengineering
• Zhi-Pei Liang, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Mark Anastasio, Department of Bioengineering
• Paul Arnold, Department of Neurosurgery (Carle Foundation Hospital)
• Daniel Barnett, Carle Cancer Institute

Lipid Droplet Packing: A New Target to Interfere with the Progress of Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Principal Investigator:

• Cecilia Leal, Department of Materials Science & Engineering

Research Team:

• Sayee Anakk, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology

Multi-shape 3D Hanging Drop Array for Cancer Drug-screening

Principal Investigator:

• Rashid Bashir, Department of Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Panagiotis Z. Anastasiadis, Department of Cancer Biology (Mayo Clinic – Jacksonville, FL)
• George Vasmatzis, Department of Molecular Medicine (Mayo Clinic – Rochester, MN)
• Andrew Smith, Department of Bioengineering
• Joon Kong, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Jie Chen, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Quantitative Ultrasound for Detection of Lymph Node Metastasis from Oral Melanoma & to Document Tumor Response to Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Dogs as a Large Animal Model of Metastatic Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Kimberly Selting, Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine

Research Team:

• Audrey Billhymer, Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine
• Michael Oelze, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Rita Miller, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Stable Therapeutic Antibody Expression for Cancer Immunotherapy by Liver-directed Gene Editing

Principal Investigator:

• Shannon Sirk, Department of Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Thomas Gaj, Department of Bioengineering
• Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition
• Pablo Perez-Pinera, Department of Bioengineering

Workflows and Tools for Visualizing Tumor Phylogenies in Metastatic Breast Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Mohammed El-Kebir, Department of Computer Science

Research Team:

• Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition
• Charles Blatti, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• Colleen Bushell, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• Lisa Gatzke, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• Matthew Berry, National Center for Supercomputing Applications

The Role of the Urinary Sterolbiome in Prostate Cancer Risk

Principal Investigator:

• Jason Ridlon, Department of Animal Sciences

Research Team:

• H. Rex Gaskins, Department of Animal Sciences
• Joseph Irudayaraj, Department of Bioengineering
• John Erdman, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition

Using Anticancer Drug-Induced Immune Cell Activation to Target Ovarian Cancer for Eradication

Principal Investigator:

• David Shapiro, Professor, Biochemistry

Research Team:

• Erik Nelson, Assistant Professor, Molecular and Integrative Physiology
• Georgina Cheng, Clinical Assistant Professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine

 

Elucidating the Role of Minor Cannabinoids on Immune Cell Activation Involved in Lung Cancer Metastatic Progression

Principal Investigator:

• David Sarlah, Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Research Team:

• Aditi Das, Associate Professor, Comparative Biosciences
• Timothy Fan, Professor, Veterinary Clinical Medicine

 

Establishment of a Spatially Resolved Noncoding RNA-mRNA Interactome Map for Breast Cancer Progression

Principal Investigator:

• Hee-Sun Han, Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Research Team:

• Saurabh Sinha, Professor, Computer Science
• Prasanth Kumar V. Kannanganattu, Associate Professor, Cell and Developmental Biology

 

2020 Recipients

Identifying Pathways for Therapeutic Design to Stop Liver Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Sayeepriyadarshini Anakk, Associate Professor, Molecular and Integrative Physiology

Research Team:

• Auinash Kalsotra, Associate Professor, Biochemistry
• Stephen Boppart, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

 

Enhancing GBM Immunotherapy Through Peripheral Viral Infection and Inhibition of Immune Suppression in the Tumor Microenvironment

Principal Investigator:

• H. Rex Gaskins, Professor, Animal Sciences

Research Team:

• Andrew Steelman, Assistant Professor, Animal Sciences
• Ed Roy, Professor Emeritus, Pathology and Molecular and Integrative Physiology
• Stephen Boppart, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Brendan Harley, Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

 

Effect of Dietary Modulation of RAGE/AGE Axis on Prostatic Neuroendocrine Differentiation and the Efficacy of Anticancer Therapies

Principal Investigator:

• Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, Associate Professor, Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Erik Nelson, Assistant Professor, Molecular and Integrative Physiology
• Gregory Underhill, Associate Professor, Bioengineering

2019 Recipients

A 3-D In Vitro Biomimetic Tumor Microenvironment Integrated with a Micro Sensor Platform

Principal Investigator:

• M. Taher A. Saif, Professor, Mechanical Science and Engineering

Research Team:

• Kimberly Selting, Associate Professor, Veterinary Medicine
• Mohammed El-Kebir, Assistant Professor, Computer Science

 

Diet-modified Efficacy of RAGE-targeted Prostate Cancer Treatments

Principal Investigator:

• Wawrzyniec Dobrucki, Associate Professor, Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Erik Nelson, Assistant Professor, Molecular and Integrative Physiology
• John W. Erdman, Professor Emeritus, Food Science and Human Nutrition

 

Elucidating Mechanisms by which Environmental Toxicants Induce Liver Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Auinash Kalsotra, Associate Professor, Biochemistry

Research Team:

• Joseph Irudayaraj, Professor, Bioengineering
• Jodi Flaws, Professor, Comparative Biosciences

 

Elucidating Premetastatic Niche-Induced Therapy Resistance Mechanisms in ER(+) Metastatic Breast Cancers

Principal Investigator:

• Zeynep Madak-Erdogan, Assistant Professor, Food Science and Human Nutrition

Research Team:

• Roy Dar, Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
• Erik Nelson, Assistant Professor, Molecular and Integrative Physiology

 

Eradication of H.Pylori with PH-sensitive Antimicrobial Polypeptides to Reduce Gastric Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Jianjun Cheng, Professor, Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Lin-Feng Chen, Professor, Biochemistry

 

Integrated Computational and CRISPR-CAS9 Imaging Platforms for Studying Non-Coding Pathogenic Germline Variants and Somatic Mutations in Breast Cancer

Principal Investigator:

• Pablo Perez-Pinera, Assistant Professor, Bioengineering

Research Team:

• Jun Song, Professor of Physics
• Thomas Kuhlman, Assistant Professor, Physics

 

Listening Online and Listening Face-to-Face: Innovative Mixed-Method Approaches for Studying Cancer Communication in the New Media Environment

Principal Investigator:

• Kevin Chang, Professor, Computer Science

Research Team:

• Cabral Bigman-Galimore, Assistant Professor, Communication
• Diana Grigsby-Toussaint, Associate Professor, Kinesiology and Community Health

 

Predicting Response to Cancer Immunotherapy Using a Subclone-Integrated Machine Learning Model of Neoantigen Processing, Presentation, and Recognition

Principal Investigator:

• Jian Peng, Assistant Professor, Computer Science

Research Team:

• Mohammed El-Kebir, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
• Hong Jin, Assistant Professor, Biochemistry