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Neuroscience Graduate Program

The NSP at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an interdisciplinary program of study and research leading to the doctoral degree.

We offer a rigorous yet flexible program designed to foster the growth of the student through research activities, close interactions with faculty, and exposure to top neuroscientists through our seminar series and attendance at professional meetings.

Neuroscience Program Events Calendar

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Neuroscience News

Nobel Prize-winning technology being studied at University of Illinois

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to optogenetics researchers. It is a new field of study, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is one of the few schools nationwide researching it.“Optogenetics is a light switch for a cell,” said Kai Zhang, a professor in...

NSP Faculty member, Xiaotang Lu, received the NIH Director's New Innovator Award for her work mapping connections within the brain.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Xiaotang Lu, a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has received the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award...

Cultivating Affective Resilience: Proof-of-Principle Evidence of Translational Benefits From a Novel Cognitive-Emotional Training Intervention

AbstractAvailable evidence highlights the importance of emotion regulation in psychological well-being. However, translation of the beneficial effects of ER from laboratory to real-life remains scarce. Here, we present proof-of-principle evidence from a novel cognitive-emotional...

Beckman’s newest seed project will expand existing AI models into a framework that analyzes neurological aging.

In its fourth year, the research seed grant program at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology will fund one research project beginning in 2026.Members of the team include, from left, Nien-Pei Tsai...

Honey bee larvae can't smell - and that's actually a good thing

BEESEarth.com (Telluride, Colo., July 16) — Gene Robinson, Illinois entomology professor and executive director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute, led a study seeking to understand if a young bee never has to find its own food, does it still need to smell the world around it? “Larval...

Artificial Intelligence: Enabling More Sustainable Labs

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCETechnology Networks (with audio; Suffolk, England, May 6) — Jimeng Sun, a computer science professor at the U. of I., used training data from over 8,000 past trials to predict the outcome of more than 3,400 recent drug studies in a prediction model. “All this...

Faculty Spotlight

Dr. Jason Climer - Unraveling the Mysteries of the Brain

Jason Climer, a dynamic researcher at the Beckman Institute, brings a unique blend of engineering and neuroscience to his work. Climer is a Neuroscience faculty member with his home unit being Molecular and Integrative Physiology. Driven by personal experiences with neurodegenerative diseases, Climer is dedicated to understanding the intricate workings of the brain, particularly in the areas of memory and forgetting.Climer's research delves into the fascinating world of "place cells," neurons that fire when an animal occupies a specific location. His work explores how these cells contribute...

Alumni Spotlight

Tracey Mencio Wszalek

What field in Neuroscience did you study? What about the research process did you enjoy? Did you prefer gathering the data, brainstorming its meaning, the writing process, defending your research, presenting your research, etc. My thesis research focused on neuroendocrine modulators of memory. I appreciated that all aspects of the research process were important, but I most enjoyed seeing the data come together to tell a story that built on the literature and offered new insights.

Publication Spotlight

Differential dynamics and direct interaction of bound ligands with lipids in multidrug transporter ABCG2

Abstract ABCG2 is an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter that extrudes a wide range of xenobiotics and drugs from the cell and contributes to multidrug resistance in cancer cells. Following our recent structural characterization of topotecan-bound ABCG2, here, we present cryo-EM structures of ABCG2 under turnover conditions in complex with a special modulator and slow substrate, tariquidar, in nanodiscs. The structures reveal that similar to topotecan, tariquidar induces two distinct ABCG2 conformations under turnover conditions (turnover-1 and turnover-2). μs-scale molecular dynamics...

South Quad - McFarland Carillon Memorial Bell Tower

Land Acknowledgement

As a land-grant institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a responsibility to acknowledge the historical context in which it exists. We are currently on the lands of the Peoria, Kaskaskia, Peankashaw, Wea, Miami, Mascoutin, Odawa, Sauk, Mesquaki, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, and Chickasaw Nations. It is necessary for us to acknowledge these Native Nations and for us to work with them as we move forward as an institution with Native peoples at the core of our efforts.

More about the practice of land acknowledgements at the University of Illinois.