May 30, 2019:

The Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) has joined the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC).

Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the CCIL develops new insights, tools, and technologies to fight cancer and moves those advances into clinical practice. The CCIL unites historic campus strengths in basic science and engineering to develop new ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer, enabling people to live cancer-free lives.

Officially established in 2018 as a designated research institute on the Illinois campus after nearly a decade of development, the CCIL is the cancer-focused hub of a highly integrated campus research ecosystem and aims to develop next-generation technologies to improve cancer care.

Cancer Center members work across disciplines and traditional academic silos to develop novel, cancer-focused science and technology, translate that technology into practice, and educate students, professional researchers, clinicians, and members of the public in cancer research-related topics.

CCIL research is organized in two primary tracks: The Cancer Measurement Technology and Data Science program focuses on research in next-generation imaging, technology for precision medicine, and computational biology and engineering, and the Cancer Discovery Across the Engineering-Biology Continuum program focuses on research in pathways and mechanisms, targeted drug discovery, and engineered and natural model systems.

Rohit Bhargava, PhD, director of the Cancer Center at Illinois.

“The Cancer Center at Illinois is excited to become a part of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium,” said Rohit Bhargava, PhD, the CCIL’s cancer center director. “This provides us the opportunity to collaborate at a developmental level with other Big Ten universities to advance our common goal of discovering and implementing new approaches for diagnosing, treating, and ultimately preventing cancer.”

“The Cancer Center at Illinois brings significant scientific expertise to the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium,” said Ruth O’Regan, MD, the Big Ten CRC’s chief scientific officer and division chief of hematology, medical oncology and palliative care in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “As we work diligently to translate laboratory discoveries into clinical practice, we anticipate a strong collaboration between Big Ten physicians and scientists, including our research colleagues at the CCIL.”

Learn more about the Cancer Center at Illinois: https://cancer.illinois.edu/

About the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium: The Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium was created in 2013 to transform the conduct of cancer research through collaborative, hypothesis-driven, highly translational oncology trials that leverage the scientific and clinical expertise of Big Ten universities. The goal of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium is to create a unique team-research culture to drive science rapidly from ideas to new approaches to cancer treatment. Within this innovative environment, today’s research leaders collaborate with and mentor the research leaders of tomorrow with the unified goal of improving the lives of all patients with cancer.

About the Big Ten Conference: The Big Ten Conference is an association of world-class universities whose member institutions share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service. Founded in 1896, the Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics in the lives of students competing in intercollegiate athletics and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness. The broad-based programs of the 14 Big Ten institutions will provide over $200 million in direct financial support to almost 9,500 students for more than 11,000 participation opportunities on 350 teams in 42 different sports. The Big Ten sponsors 28 official conference sports, 14 for men and 14 for women, including the addition of men’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s lacrosse since 2013. For more information, visit www.bigten.org.