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The Eltoukhy Family Innovation Lab will be led by a five-person team of students in its inaugural year. Executive Director Mia Mikolajczak and teammates work with department family and staff to ensure smooth planning and provide training opportunities for the students who will use it for projects. 

Associate Professor Hua Wang has been selected to receive the 2026 Biomaterials Science Lectureship, a prestigious early-career honor presented annually by the Royal Society of Chemistry recognizing significant contributions to the biomaterials field. As part of the award, Wang will deliver a September 2026 lecture at the European Society for Biomaterials annual conference in Antwerp, Belgium.

The International Centre for Advanced Materials (ICAM) has announced an exciting expansion of its long-standing academic–industry partnership involving the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and multiple other institutions, with Department Head Nancy Sottos serving as Illinois representative. ICAM is broadening its research scope to encompass materials, chemistry, catalysis, biosciences and subsurface technologies in support of bp's energy and net zero ambitions. 

Associate Professor Hua Wang is leading a multidisciplinary team of CCIL researchers in developing an in vivo technology to metabolically tag and target red blood cells, with the potential to extend drug circulation in the body from hours to weeks and enable long-lasting biomedical imaging with a single dose of contrast agent. Funded by an NIH R01 award, this research holds broad implications for cancer treatment—including improved anti-cancer drug delivery with reduced dosing frequency—as well as advances in MRI and fluorescence imaging for studying vascular abnormalities in tumors.

Professors Nancy Sottos and Ioannis Chasiotis are engineering polymers that can protect themselves from the harsh conditions of low-earth orbit, with several formulations already showing dramatic reductions in material erosion during International Space Station trials. Their work could fundamentally change how satellites and spacecraft are built, and may one day enable the direct manufacturing of structural components in space.

Professor Pinshane Huang received a prestigious award from the Microscopy Society of America in the Burton Medal, Physical Sciences. The honor highlights her distinguished accomplishments in microscopy and microanalysis, including the pioneering of electron microscopy methods to probe 2D materials and heterostructures.