University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Cancer Center at Illinois (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, treat cancer, enabling people to live cancer-free lives.

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

Founded in 2018 after nearly a decade as an informal campus center, 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.

More than 100 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 Cancer Discovery Across the Engineering-Biology Continuum program researches in Pathways and Mechanisms, Targeted Drug Discovery, and Engineered and Natural Model Systems.

The CCIL is developing a skilled workforce trained in multi-disciplinary approaches to cancer research. Unique educational programs provide transformative learning experiences, including research opportunities, fellowships, workforce development and advocacy, and include programs for high schoolers, undergraduate and graduate students, and post-doctoral opportunities.