Doctor talking with boy after giving vaccine with mother smiling.

Great health matters.

It allows us to get up every morning to be there for the people we love, contribute to our communities, and more fully enjoy our favorite things. Here are some ways Illinois researchers protect health and develop new treatments.

Illinois cancer researchers are developing more effective treatments for breast cancer patients with liver metastatic tumors. They’re currently exploring the promising effects of a fasting-mimicking diet on endocrine therapies.

Did you know?

A supercomputer on-campus, called Delta, is so fast that it can run real-time simulations of viral infections like Hepatitis B interacting with human cells. Illinois researchers use Delta to study, learn about, and ultimately fight diseases.

Researcher interviews a child in a research lab

An Illinois research team has partnered with more than 500 local moms to track their pregnancies and follow many of the children for nearly a decade, collecting data to inform pregnant people, influence public policy, and help future generations of children be happier and healthier.

“The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District is a partner with many Illinois researchers. We’re able to discuss with researchers the problems or situations that we need assistance with, and they reach out to us to help make sure that the research they are proposing will benefit the community.”

Julie Pryde, Administrator
Champaign-Urbana Public Health District

Did you know?

Concussions in young athletes can be scary, but Illinois researchers have developed new tools to help school officials know what to look for when deciding it’s safe to play again.

Q&A: Chris Stone, Medical Entomologist at Illinois

What do you enjoy about the Champaign-Urbana area?

I enjoy living in an area with a diverse international community, my quick commute to work, the walkable neighborhoods, and the nearby forest preserves. I also appreciate the landscape, which reminds me of the Netherlands, where I’m originally from.

Briefly describe your research.

Our lab works on mosquitoes, ticks, and the diseases they transmit to humans and other animals. A lot of what we do comes down to studying where mosquitoes and ticks are and understanding how the environment shapes the intensity of disease transmission and risk.

What sparked your interest in this research?

One of my first research experiences allowed me to spend half a year in Kenya, studying the egg-laying behavior of a type of mosquito that significantly contributes to the spread of malaria. Seeing the impact of malaria on people there (and contracting it myself) motivated me to contribute to this field.

How do you hope your work impacts people?

I hope our work helps raise awareness of mosquito- and tick-borne diseases in Illinois so that people can be empowered to protect themselves and their families better. In addition, our work can be helpful for physicians, the public health system, and others, and I hope it supports them in understanding, preventing, and effectively responding to vector-borne diseases.

Did you know?

New virtual reality technologies developed at Illinois are being used to help train physicians on ways to mitigate their own bias in patient care and improve their cultural competency skills.

Regular exercise can improve your gut health! That’s what researchers at Illinois discovered when observing the gut microbes of well-exercised mice before confirming the same is true in humans.