Gabriel Popescu and members of his lab are taking a unique approach in developing optical methods for the understanding of cells and their dynamics, including how they communicate to one another.
Beckman Institute researchers who pioneered research into distracted driving have now found that the opposite is also true: driving impedes language comprehension and production.
Helping to understand the dynamics and structure of red blood cells (RBCs) through the development of novel optical imaging techniques is a key focus of Beckman Institute faculty member Gabriel Popescu’s Quantitative Light Imaging (QLI) Laboratory.
One well-documented way to slow memory decline is through aerobic exercise, says Art Kramer, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Beckman Institute, who found that six months of walking for about an hour three times a week improved memory, attention and decision making among study participants, whose average age was 72.
Beckman Institute faculty member Art Kramer and two of his former Human Perception and Performance group members, Kirk Erickson and Wally Boot, are part of a multi-institutional study showing that the volume of three structures in the brain is predictive of video game performance.
John Rogers, a Beckman researcher and professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois, has developed a way in which flat silicon wafers could be replaced so semiconductors can be used to monitor the heart and brain.
Beckman Institute faculty member Ioannis Chasiotis received the 2008 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers last week in a ceremony at the White House.
It took more than 13 years but a landmark discovery by current Beckman Institute researcher Joe Lyding and former Beckman research theme co-chair Karl Hess is going into mass production. In 1996, in a conversation in Hess’s office, the two hit on the idea to use deuterium as a way to reduce hot electron damage in integrated circuit transistors. Last week, an agreement was reached with electronics giant Samsung to license their method for use in semiconductor devices.

An eye-catching digital sign recently installed in the east end of the Beckman Institute atrium is just the first stage in a plan to make information about the building’s spaces, events, people, and facilities easier to use and more efficient.
John Rogers, a Beckman researcher and U. of I. professor of materials science and engineering, says that his research team obtained lightweight, flexible devices that bend without measurable changes in their electrical or mechanical properties by stamping hundreds of these microcells onto plastic substrates. This, says Rogers, makes them ideal for integration on fabrics such as backpacks, clothes and cases.