Partners

The collaborative facility will help harness scientific excellence and expertise from four units across UIC and UI Health.

University of Illinois Cancer Center. The Cancer Center is a national model for community-informed and team-based research that prioritizes delivering personalized cancer. The center was invited to apply for Clinical Cancer Center status from the National Cancer Institute in 2024. Outstanding work in cancer research and health equity has earned the Cancer Center prestigious grant awards from the National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities and the American Cancer Society.

Department of Chemistry. The department of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ranks 30th overall nationwide and 39th for published research productivity. The department has 30 active faculty who oversee breakthrough research at the root of drug discovery. Among these drug discoveries is Prezista, a widely used protease inhibitor medication designed for people with treatment-resistant HIV. It has proved to be the most lucrative source of royalties in UIC history.

Retzky College of Pharmacy. The college recently ranked 15 among more than 140 colleges of pharmacy in the U.S., and first among pharmacy schools in Illinois. In the past five years alone, the college and its faculty have been issued 32 U.S. patents, representing innovations in everything from cancer treatment to pregnancy prevention.

UICentre. This center, with its staff of 10 Ph.D. scientists, provides translational drug discovery expertise to scientists across UIC. It issues seed grants to promising research projects, collaborating with awardees to discover “hits” and develop them into “leads” that show promising activity in models of disease. Bringing these units, with their impressive credentials and accomplishments, together in the DDCRP will bring UIC to a new level of scientific research distinction.