2024

September

Congratulations! Bhagya for winning the EREF scholarship.

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August

Dr. Jayakody won the NSF-CAREER award, $624,500 to wok on developing consolidated bio processing for plastic upcycling.  Link

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April 

Congratulations! Sandhya received the SIU Doctoral fellowship in 2024.

February 

Congratulations! Bhagya received the SIU Doctoral fellowship in 2024.
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Congratulations! Bhagya for winning the 2nd place in SIU 3MT completion in 2024.

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January 

Congratulations! Bhagya won the college (CALPS) level 3MT completion in 2024. 

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​2023

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December

Congratulations! Sandhya Jayasekara graduates with her MSc.

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November 

Dr. Jayakody Joined as an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Synthetic Biology (section: Metabolic Engineering) 

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October

Congratulations! Sandhya Jayasekara and Bhagya Jayantha won the top poster award at the 2023 Student Research and Creative Activities Forum, SIUC.

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August 

Dr. Jayakody gave an invited talk, Special Session: The Impact of Biotech on the Future Food Supply: µBites: Next-generation 3D-printed nutritious food derived from plastic and biomass waste, at the 73rd SIMB Annual Meeting, Minnesota, MN.  

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June

Dr. Hamilton-Brehem, Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Jayakody received US HAB-CTI Funding to develop molecular machinery to stop algae from making toxins.

Link 

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April

Congratulations! Dr. Sandipty Kyastha for receiving her doctorate.

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Dr. Jayakody was recognized by the recognized by the Illinois Innovation Network as an Innovator to Know! Governor JB Pritzker has proclaimed April 2023 as Innovation and Technology Month in Illinois. This recognition provides a time to celebrate the significant contributions that technology and innovation make to the state's economy and society. 

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Congratulations! Lakshika Dissanayake received the Doctoral fellowship for the second year.

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Congratulations! Bhagya and Sandhya for winning the poster presentation award at 2023 Student Research & Creative Activities Forum 

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February

Congratulations! Lakshika Dissanyake for wining SIUC 3MT competition, and heading to the regional competition.

 

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2022

November 
Dr. Jayakody was recently recognized by the Illinois Science & Technology Coalition among the 2022 “Researchers to Know” at Illinois universities. An emphasis was also placed on researchers that have recently achieved milestones, such as publishing an influential paper, receiving national recognition, or commercializing a new innovation.

October 

Dr. Jayakody won the Illinois Innovation Network award for his work in food and agriculture.

The Illinois Innovation Network is a group of public universities and community colleges working together to improve the state's economy through an inclusive approach to innovation, research and education. It has 15 innovation hubs across Illinois associated with 13 public universities.

August 
Congratulations! Lakshika Dissanayake received the Environmental Research & Education Foundation's (EREF) Research Program scholarship to work on "Thermo-bio hybrid process to upcycle waste textile", outstanding accomplishment. 

July 
Patrick presented his finding at REU poster session. 
Patrick Comb joins as a REU student. Welcome!

June 
Our article published in International Journal of Food Microbiology (Link)

May 
Congratulations! Lakshika Dissanayake graduates with her MSc.
Bhagya Kolitha joins as a Grad student. Welcome!
Dr. Jayakody gave an invited talk at SBFC, SIMB meeting, Plastics Deconstruction session 

April
Congratulations! Lakshika Dissanayake received the Doctoral fellowship.
Congratulations! Abbigail Spark and Ryann Ligon received REACH awards for continuing undergraduate research projects 

March
Congratulations! Sandipty Kayastha for wining SIUC 3MT competition, and heading to the regional competition.
Dr. Jayakody gave an invited talk at ACS spring, USDA symposium on Human Intervention on Biosynthesis

Feb 
Congratulations! Sandipty Kayastha received the Doctoral fellowship.
Our article published in Energy and Environmental Science, the top journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry'
(Link) 

Jan
Sandhya Jayasekara joins as a Grad student. Welcome!
Lily Becker joins as an undergraduate student. Welcome!


2021
Dec
Our article published in Bioresource Technology (Link) 

SIU researchers aim to turn drink waste into recyclable plastic thesouthern.com
Dr. Jayakody gave an invited talk virtually at the PGIA congress 2021, Postgraduate Institute of Agriculture, Sri Lanka.

Nov
Team micro-bite lead by Dr. Jayakody won the Phase I- NASA Deep Space Food Challenge (Link) 
Congrats, Lakshika Dissanayake, for successfully defending her master thesis

Oct
Dr. Jayakody received industrial funding from Green Core, PLC, Japan to develop new biodegradable plastic. 

Congratulation!, Lakshika's paper was accepted in Frontier in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Link)


 
2020
Lakshika Dissanayake joins as a Grad student. Welcome!
Sandipty Kayashta joins as a Grad student. Welcome!
Juling Zafo joins as a undergraduate student. Welcome!

2019
Peter Langridge, Isaac Show, and Danielle Neal joins as a undergraduate student. Welcome all!