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  • 2020/03/12 Congratulations to Page Daniels, Rachel Martini, and Layla Wu for winning Winter 2020 Biochemistry Graduate Student Travel Grant awards. 

  • 2020/01/07 Congratulations to Dr. Chang He for earning her PhD and accepting a position at Kumquat Biosciences. 

  • 2020/01/07 New paper in Biochemistry: congratulations to Martin McLaughlin.

  • 2019/12/10 Congratulations to Dr. Kuan-Yu ‘Nick’ Lai for earning his PhD (2020).

  • 2019/11/21 New paper in J. Am. Chem. Soc.: congratulations to Dr. Zhengan Zhang.

  • 2019/11/16 Congratulations to vanderland undergrad, Alondra Sanchez, for winning Outstanding Poster Award titled “The Structure-Activity Relationships of Enterococcal Cytolysin” sponsored by the UIUC Women Chemists Committee and presented at the 4th annual ECI ACS Undergraduate Research Conference.

  • 2019/11/12 Congratulations to Dr. Linna An for earning her PhD and taking a postdoc position at the University of Washington (2020).

  • 2019/10/08 Congratulations to Page Daniels and Imran Rahman for winning Fall 2019 Biochemistry Graduate Student Travel Grant awards. 

  • 2019/09/19 New paper in Biochemistry: congratulations to Dr. Graeme Howe.

  • 2019/09/18 New paper in ChemBioChem: congratulations to Drs. Liujie Huo, Jeella Acedo, and Xiling Zhao.

  • 2019/08/27 New paper in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA: congratulations to Dr. Ian Bothwell and Terry Kim.

  • 2019/08/26 Former vanderlander, Dr. Juan Velasquez, and his team at P&G were recognized with the 2020 ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry for their work in the development of a new catalyst and gas-phase dehydration process for the production of acrylic acid from lactic acid.

  • 2019/08/01 Congratulations to Dr. Jeella Acedo for accepting an assistant professorship position at Mount Royal University, Canada.

  • 2019/07/28 Congratulations to Emily Desormeaux and Sara Eslami for making the spring 2019 “List of Teachers Ranked as Outstanding by Their Students” for TAing CHEM 332 and 233, respectively.

  • 2019/07/19 New paper in Science: congratulations to Drs. Chi Ting and Michael Funk.

  • 2019/07/01 Congratulations to former vanderlander, Prof. Russ Pesavento, for being awarding an NIH K08 grant for his project “Novel Biofilm Inhibitors of Oral Streptococci.”

  • 2019/06/20 Congratulations to Imran Rahman for being awarded the AY 2019-2020 Westcott Bioscience Fellowship for AY 2019-2020.

  • 2019/06/05 New paper in ACS Synth. Biol.: congratulations to Dr. Julian Hegemann.

  • 2019/06/01 Congratulations to Dr. Julian Hegemann for accepting a postdoc position w/ Roderich Süssmuth, TU Berlin and to Dr. Graeme Howe for accepting an assistant professorship position at Queen’s University, Canada.

  • 2019/05/28 Congratulations to vanderland alumna, Dr. Weixin Tang, for accepting an assistant professorship position at the University of Chicago.

  • 2019/05/01 New paper in ACS Synth. Biol.  Congratulations to Dr. Julian Hegemann, Silvia Bobeica, Dr. Mark Walker, and Dr. Ian Bothwell.

  • 2019/04/16 Congratulations to former vanderland undergrad, Abby Trouth, for being selected as a 2019 Goldwater Scholar.

  • 2019/04/16 Congratulations to Max Simon for being selected to present an oral presentation titled “Filling in the Gaps: Complete Biosynthetic Pathway to Fosfomycin in Pseudomonads” during the UIUC BIOE Graduate Research Symposium on Friday, May 3, 2019.

  • 2019/04/10 Congratulations to Chunyu “Layla” Wu for passing her preliminary exam in Biochemistry.

  • 2019/03/28 Congratulations to Max Simon for receiving a UIUC Graduate College Conference Travel Award for his poster titled, “Filling in the Gaps: Complete Biosynthetic Pathway to Fosfomycin in Pseudomonads” at the 26th Enzyme Mechanisms Conference.

  • 2019/02/12 Congratulations to Chunyu ‘Layla’ Wu for winning a Winter 2019 UIUC Department of Biochemistry Travel Grant.

  • 2019/01/14 New paper in eLife: congratulations to Silvia Bobeica, Dr. Liujie Huo, Nuria Mazo, and Martin McLaughlin.

  • 2018/12 Congratulations to Emily Desormeaux (CHEM 105), Sara Eslami (CHEM 237), Dinh Nguyen (CHEM 233), and Raymond Sarksian (CHEM 232) for making the fall 2018 “List of Teachers Ranked as Outstanding by Their Students.”

  • 2018/12/24 New paper in ACS Infect. Dis.: congratulations to Chunyu ‘Layla’ Wu, Subhanip Biswas, and Dr. Chantal Garcia De Gonzalo.

  • 2018/12/20 New paper in Org. Biomol. Chem.: congratulations to Drs. Despina Bougioukou, Chi Ting, Spencer Peck, and Subha Mukherjee.

  • 2018/12/10 Congratulations to Dr. Zhengan Zhang for earning his PhD.

  • 2018/11/28 Congratulations to Dr. Kwo-Kwang ‘Abraham’ Wang for earning his PhD and taking a postdoc position at MIT (2019).

  • 2018/11/27 New paper in J. Ind. Microbiol. Biotechnol.: congratulations to Dr. Weixin Tang and Silvia Bobeica. 

  • 2018/10/18  Congratulations to Page Daniels for passing her preliminary exam in Biochemistry.

  • 2018/10/1 Alumnus Dr. Yi Yu accepted a position as a research scientist at Beam Therapeutics.

  • 2018/10 Congratulations to Nick Lai for receiving a Biochemistry Graduate Student Travel Grant to present a poster  titled “Non-canonical glutathionylation enzymes in mammalian systems” at the 26th  Enzyme Mechanisms Conference.

  • 2018/09/16 Congratulations to Dr. Chi Ting for receiving an NIH F32 Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award for his project “A Genome-Mining Strategy for identification of new antibiotics produced by short LanB enzymes.”

  • 2018/09/11 New paper in Nat. Comm.: congratulations to Kwo-Kwang ‘Abraham’ Wang and Dr. Zedu Huang.

  • 2018/09/04 Congratulations to Dr. Kenton Hetrick for earning his PhD and taking a postdoc position at MIT (2018).

  • 2018/09/03 New paper in Nat. Chem. Biol.: congratulations to Linna An.

  • 2018/09/01 Dr. David Krist was awarded a Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Mining Microbial Genomes (MMG) Research Theme.

  • 2018/07/20 New paper in  Chem. Comm.: congratulations to Dr. Julian Hegemann.

  • 2018/07/03 New paper in Biochemistry: congratulations to Martin McLaughlin. 

  • 2018/07 Dr. Graeme Howe received a Poster Prize at the Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for his poster titled “Using Secondary 18O Kinetic Isotope Effects to Determine the Transition State Structure for Phosphite Dehydrogenase.”

  • 2018/06/07 New paper in J. Lipid Res.: congratulations to Dr. Priya Dutta.

  • 2018/05 New paper in Methods Enzymol.: congratulations to Silvia Bobeica.

  • 2018/04/10 New paper in J Am Chem Soc.: congratulations to Dr. Julian Hegemann.

  • 2018/04/06  Congratulations to Imran Rahman for passing his preliminary exam in Biochemistry.

  • 2018/03/28 New paper in ACS Cent. Sci.: congratulations to Kenton Hetrick and Dr. Mark Walker.

  • 2018/03/30 Congratulations to Subhanip Biswas for passing his ORP titled “Investigating the perylenequinone biosynthesis pathway and engineering pathogen resistant plants.”

  • 2018/03/27 Congratulations to Chang He for passing her ORP.

  • 2018/03/20 New paper in J Am Chem Soc.: congratulations to Dr. Lindsay Repka and Kenton Hetrick.

  • 2018/03/12 New report on our unique cyclic compound library on ILLINOIS news.

  • 2018/03/05 New paper in Nat Chem Biol.: congratulations to Dr. Xiao Yang and Chang He.

  • 2018 Congratulations to our alumni, Dr. Spencer Peck, for accepting a position at Kintai Therapeutics (2018).

  • 2018 Congratulations to Subhanip Biswas for receiving a departmental travel award for the 2018 Fall ACS Conference in Boston to present on “Structure activity relationships of the S-Linked Glycocin Sublancin.”

  • 2018 Congratulations to Dr. Jeella Acedo for being awarded an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship (2018).

  • 2018/02/13 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Dr. Nidhi Kakkar.

  • 2018/01/29 Congratulations to Dr. Nidhi Kakkar for earning her PhD and taking a job at Intel Corporation (2018).

  • 2018/01/05 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Emily Ulrich and Dr. Despina Bougioukou.

  • 2018 Congratulations to Zhengan for winning the Pines Graduate Fellowship (2017-18).

  • 2018 Congratulations to Linna An for winning the Fuson Travel Award (2018).

  • 2017 Congratulations to Imran Rahman for receiving a traineeship from the Illinois Chemical Biology Interface Training Program (2017).

  • 2017/12/15 Congratulations to Emily Ulrich for earning her PhD and taking a postdoc at MIT (2017).

  • 2017/12/15 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Subhanip Biswas.

  • 2017 Congratulations to Kenton Hetrick for winning the 2017 Seemon Pines Award.

  • 2017 Congratulations to Dr. Lindsay Repka for taking a faculty position at Middlebury College (2017).

  • 2017 Congratulations to Dr. Liujie Huo for taking a faculty position at Shandong University (2017).

  • 2017/12/07 New report on an unique enzyme related with ocean methane production on MIT news.

  • 2017/12/08 New paper in Science.: congratulations to Dr. Emily Ulrich.

  • 2017/12/27 New paper in J Am Chem Soc.: congratulations to Zhengan Zheng.

  • 2017/12/05 New paper in Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.: congratulations to Zhengan Zheng.

  • 2017/03/29 New paper in J Am Chem Soc.: congratulations to Zhengan Zheng.

  • 2017/03/02 New paper in Curr Opin Chem Biol.: congratulations to Kenton Hetrick.

  • 2017/01/30 Congratulations to Dr. Xiling Zhao for passing her PhD and taking a job at Amyris (2017).

  • 2017/01/30 New paper in Sci Rep.: congratulations to Chang He, Dr. Zeng, and Dr. Priya Dutta.

  • 2017/01/20 New paper in Chem Rev.: congratulations to Dr. Lindsay Repka.

  • 2016/12/29 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Dr. Manuel Ortega.

  • 2016/12/27 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Emily Ulrich.

  • 2016/10/25 New paper in J Biol Inorg Chem.: congratulations to Dr. Spencer Peck.

  • 2016/09/07 New paper in Org. Lett.: congratulations to Subha Mukherjee and Gabby Thibodeaux.

  • 2016/09/07 New paper in Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol: congratulations to Emily Ulrich.

  • 2016/7/20 Congratulations to Kenton Hetrick for receiving an NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award for his project “Development and Utility of Phage Display of Lanthipeptides.”

  • 2016/06/27 New paper in ACS Chem Biol.: congratulations to Dr. Weixin Tang.

  • 2016/5/31 Congratulations to Subhanip Biswas for making the spring 2016 “List of Teachers Ranked as Outstanding by Their Students” for TAing CHEM 233.

  • 2016/05/06 New paper in Chem Sci.: congratulations to Abraham Wang and Dr. Zedu Huang.

  • 2016/03/30 Congratulations to Emily Ulrich for being awarded an R. C. Fuson Travel Award for fall 2016.

  • 2016/04/28 New paper in JACS: congratulations to Dr. Chris Thibodeaux.

  • 2016/04/28 New paper in JACS: congratulations to Dr. Liujie Huo.

  • 2016 Congratulations to Emily Ulrich for receiving a University of Illinois Pines Travel Award.

  • 2015/04/13 New paper in JACS; congratulations to Zhengan Zhang.

  • 2015/01/21 New paper in Cell Chem. Bio.; congratulations to Dr. Manuel Ortega.

  • 2015/12/14 Congratulations to Subhanip Biswas for making the fall 2015 “List of Teachers Ranked as Outstanding by Their Students” for TAing CHEM 233.

  • 2015/09/22 Congratulations to Dr. Chantal Garcia de Gonzalo on her successful final defense.

  • 2015/09/08 “Genome mining effort discovers 19 new natural products in four years” Illinois News Bureau September 8, 2016.

  • 2015/04/03 Congratulations to Dr. Weixin Tang on her successful final defense.

  • 2015/03/24 New paper in JACS; congratulations to Yi Yu and Subha Mukherjee.

  • 2015/03/10 New paper in ACS Chem Bio; congratulations to Xiao Yang.

  • 2015/02/19 Congratulations to Dr. Min Zeng on her successful final defense.

  • 2014/4/23 Wilfred van der Donk was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

  • 2013/04/08 Congratulations to John Hung for receiving a University of Illinois spring 2013 Fuson Travel Award for his project “Investigating the Mechanistic Role of Arg301 in Phosphite Dehydrogenase.”

  • 2013 Congratulations to Spencer Peck for receiving the University of Illinois 2013 Seemon Pines Award.

  • 2013/01/22 “Odd biochemistry yields lethal bacterial protein” Illinois News Bureau January 22, 2013.

  • 2013/01/07 Congratulations to Neha Garg for receiving second place for the University of Illinois Catherine Connor Outstanding Dissertation in Biotechnology Award for her project “Discovery of Thermophilic Peptidic Antimicrobials.”

  • 2014/01/06 “Enzyme Catalyzes S-Linked And O-Linked Glycosylation” C&EN 2014, 92, 20.

  • 2012/08/31 “Demystifying Ocean Methane” – C&EN August 31, 2012.

  • 2012/08/31 “‘Ocean methane paradox’ solved?” – RSC Chemistry World News August 31, 2012.

  • 2012/08/30 “‘Weird Chemistry’ by Microbe Is Prime Source of Ocean Methane” – ScienceDaily August 30, 2012.

  • 2012/08 Congratulations to Nidhi Kakkar for receiving a University of Illinois Dr. Harold R. Snyder Graduate Fellowship.

  • 2012/08 Congratulations to Yanxiang (Nancy) Shi for receiving a University of Illinois fall 2012 Fuson Travel Award for her project “Heterologous Production of Actagardine in E. coli.”

  • 2012/05/14 “3 Open Minutes with Wilfred van der Donk” – Progressive Dairyman May 14, 2012.

  • 2012/04/12 “Scientist of the Week: Wilfred van der Donk” – Laboratory Equipment News April 12, 2012.

  • 2012 Congratulations to Noah Bindman for receiving a University of Illinois Pines Travel Award.

  • Spring 2012 Congratulations to Noah Bindman for receiving a University of Illinois spring 2012 Fuson Travel Award for his project “Flourescent Labeling of Lantipeptides.”

  • 2011 Congratulations to Patrick Knerr for receiving a University of Illinois Pines Travel Award.

  • 2011 “Rare Sugar Linkage Revealed” – C&EN 2011, 89, 10.

  • 2007 “Amended Route To Odd Natural Product” – C&EN 2007, 85, 928.

  • “Hot Article” – Biochemistry 2007 (ACS Publications).

  • 2006 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award

  • “Methyl mystery unravelled” – Chemical Biology 2007 (UK)

  • 2006 “Five Golden Rings” – Science 2006 311, 1382-1383

  • 2006 “Nisin Engineered In Test Tube” – C&EN 2006, 84, 9

  • 2006 “Antimicrobials: A ringing success” – Nature Reviews Microbiol. 2006, 4, 322-323.

  • “Chemistry: Complex proteins” – Nature 2005, 435, 251

  • 2006 “Cloning techniques produce FDA-approved antibiotic” – Innovations Report 2006

  • 2006 “Scientists Discover Two-component Lantibiotic With Therapeutic Potential” – Science Daily 2006

  • 2004 “Toward Novel Lantibiotics” – C&EN 2004, 82, 10.

  • 2004 “Promiscuous antibiotics enzyme” – Nature Biotechnol. 2004, 22, 287

  • 2004 “Search for new antibiotics intensifies” – Chem. World 2004, 1, 21