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Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the last fiscal year remained a powerhouse of research, funded by millions of dollars in grants and contracts from government and private sources.

NASA recently selected the SIU team’s µBites (pronounced “micro-bites”) design as one of 18 nationwide showing promise to feed astronauts on future deep space voyages. SIU researchers are working on a machine to provide tasty, nutritious food, using microbial processes and recycled carbon. Led by Lahiru Jayakody, assistant professor of microbiology, the team will receive $25,000 to pursue its phase two design for NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge.

Nicole Gorman, a graduate student in zoology and research assistant at SIU’s Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory, is studying bobcat and coyote movement in Southern and Central Illinois and their impact on areas they live in.

Farhan Chowdhury, associate professor of mechanical engineering and energy processes, recently received a $442,500 grant from the National Institutes of Health. He will use it to study ways to meet an engineering challenge: creating lab-grown stem cells for specific types of body cells, such as heart, skin, or other organ tissue.

A student from a university in Puerto Rico spent the summer at Southern Illinois University Carbondale working on a project aimed at ensuring people get what they pay for when purchasing CBD products, a newer, over-the-counter pharmaceutical with analgesic and other properties. An SIU student, Chloe Leonard, a senior in physiology, will continue the work this semester.

A researcher at Southern Illinois University Carbondale has made key progress in creating a vaccine that could protect against the common sexually transmitted disease chlamydia and possibly other STDs. Vjollca Konjufca, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, recently published the results of a study that showed introducing a vaccine through the mouth and into the gut results in an immune response in the female reproductive tract.