Bioengineering Graduate Student Developing Next-Generation Therapies for Neurodegenerative Disorders Receives Illinois Innovation Award

The Illinois Innovation Award honors University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students for excellence in cutting-edge innovation or translational research that addresses real-world problems and has the potential to make a significant impact. Since 2007, $430,000 has been awarded to student innovators.

Zeballos is developing next-generation therapies for neurodegenerative disorders using CRISPR-based technologies, the molecular scissors that enable genome editing. Her research focuses on creating a gene therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal motor neuron disorder. 

Zeballos has developed a single-dose therapeutic strategy to mitigate the pathology of toxic protein aggregates that arise in 97% of ALS cases. More specifically, she used RNA-targeting CRISPR effector proteins, a programmable class of gene silencing agents, to target a disease-modifier of toxicity in ALS. Her technology improved motor function, extended survival, and reduced the severity of numerous neuropathological hallmarks in a mouse model of ALS. Her work demonstrates that CRISPR-based technologies hold promise for neurologic diseases, including ALS.

Zeballos received a $20,000 monetary award from Grainger Engineering. “I am incredibly grateful to receive the prestigious Illinois Innovation Award in recognition of my work. It is a true honor to be recognized among such an accomplished group of experts and innovators,” Zeballos said. “This recognition inspires me to strive for excellence and to continue to demonstrate that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a leading force in creating the next-generation gene therapies for neurologic diseases that will revolutionize traditional medicine.”

Jongwon Lim, a PhD student in Bioengineering (and Illinois Innovation Award finalist), is developing a rapid and precise diagnostic technology for bloodstream infections that bypasses blood culture, a method that can take as many as five days to provide precise results. Blood-borne infections, such as sepsis and hepatitis, cause high mortality, and their rapid detection remains a significant diagnostic challenge. Timely and informed administration of antibiotics within the three hours of onset of symptoms can significantly improve patient outcomes.

Lim’s innovative diagnostic technique, called “biphasic,” integrates blood drying with isothermal amplification. This innovation significantly reduces the time, cost, and complexity of instruments needed, cutting down the diagnostic time for sepsis from a day to just 2.5 hours. This efficiency is achieved by eliminating the need for lengthy blood culture steps, thereby speeding up the process of prescribing targeted antibiotics and enhancing patient outcomes.

Read about additional award winners and finalists here.