Department of
Bioengineering

Dr. Rashid Bashir, Professor of Bioengineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has advanced lab-on-a-chip technology by developing a microarray of silicon cantilevers which can measure the growth of individual cells.  Dr. Bashir heads the Micro and Nanotechnologies Laboratory on the University of Illinois campus.

The Department of Bioengineering celebrated the graduation of students from the inaugural class of undergraduates (enrolled in fall 2004). Sixteen students received the first Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering degrees conferred by the Department in the College of Engineering Commencement ceremony on May 11, 2008.

Dr. Bruce C. Wheeler, the first Interim-Head for the Bioengineering Department, will retire after 28 years at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His career at Illinois is represented by ground breaking scientific endeavors involving signal processing in neurons as a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department. His impact on undergraduate education and student-faculty relations has been a cornerstone of his administrative activities.  Reception Photos

Bioengineering Professor Rohit Bhargava is part of a team of researchers at Illinois who have reported a breakthrough for simultaneous structural and chemical characterization of samples at the femtogram level (a femtogram is one quadrillionth of a gram) and below. This news has received wide-spread press in the scientific community. Nanotechnology and Development News, (March 30, 2008), Chemie.De Information Services (Berlin, Germany, March 31, 2008), Medical News Today (Bexhill-on-Sea, England, March 29, 2008), Science Centric (April 1 2008), LabTechnologist.com (April 2, 2008)

Dr. Bhargava has also recently received attention for his translational research on cancer tumor identification with infrared spectroscopy.