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Professor Cecilia Leal's lab  has discovered that beneficial bacteria living in the honeybee gut naturally produce membrane-bound vesicles enriched with genetic material, revealing a molecular pathway through which gut symbionts communicate with their host. Using a novel cryogenic electron microscopy imaging framework to distinguish true vesicles from cellular debris, researchers opened the door  to RNA-based treatments that could protect honeybee colonies from parasites and pathogens — and may ultimately inform microbial therapeutic delivery systems in other animals and humans.

Master's student Morgan Scott was thrilled to attend the 2026 Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Conference in Seattle, with the trip funded through a Master's Student Conference Travel Award from Robert and Sandra Sherman. Scott has interned with Boeing for a number of years and has interest in working for the company after completing her master's degree in materials science and engineering.

Assistant Professor Marie Charpagne is a passionate person, both as a materials scientist and as a musician. She enjoys playing piano in her spare time as part of events at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at Illinois, allowing her to share a skill that has earned her significant awards in the past. 

Yana Kapoor, a freshman in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, could best be described as a champion. She  is winning races on the Formula 4 circuit while thriving in the classroom and hopes to either continue racing or pursue a career in industry after completing her education. 

Professors Rosa Espinosa Marzal and Cecilia Leal have discovered introducing trace amounts of water into salt-in-ionic liquid electrolytes disrupts ion clustering at the molecular level, significantly improving ionic conductivity and battery performance. Their findings, published in Science Advances, offer a promising new pathway toward sodium-ion batteries that could serve as a viable, more sustainable alternative to the lithium-ion technology that has long dominated portable electronics and electric vehicles.

Rosa Espinosa Marzal and her team discovered that positively charged hydrogels can achieve dramatically low friction against oppositely charged surfaces under hydrated conditions — the opposite of what basic electrostatics would predict — because tightly bound water layers at the material's surface generate a repulsive force that outcompetes electrostatic attraction. Published in Materials Horizons, the work advances the design of synthetic cartilage and medical device coatings while also raising important questions about the reliability of electrostatic attraction as a foundation for underwater hydrogel adhesive strategies.