UIC researchers receive $2.15M
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Spearheaded by University of Illinois Cancer Center member Yu Gao, PhD, researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) have received $2.15 million from the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences to develop methods for cutting-edge single-cell proteomics — the study of all proteins produced by an organism.
Featured in UIC Today, the project’s focus includes a platform that suspends individual cells in the air for analysis. This allows the researchers to evaluate the proteins produced by specific cells for proteomics.
With proteomics, researchers can gain different, deeper insights than with genomics, the study of genes, or transcriptomics, the study of the RNA they create. The proteins a cell produces perform actions within and among other cells in the body, so they provide the clearest picture of a cell’s real activity, said Gao, an Associate Professor in the Retzky College of Pharmacy.
“Ninety-nine percent of our biological functions are executed by proteins,” he told UIC Today. “If the gene is the blueprint of life, the transcripts are the mold that make the parts, and the proteins are the final assembled car that you actually drive. When you want to see what’s wrong with the car, the most direct answer comes from investigating the car — the protein — itself.”
Gao is a member of the Cancer Center's Translational Oncology Research Program. The Cancer Center is part of UIC.
