The Urbana-Champaign campus has a total enrollment of about 36,000 students, with about 9,800 enrolled in the Graduate College and professional programs in more than 100 fields of study. Specific research interests of the faculty are described later. Research programs are well funded, with support from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, Searle Scholars Program, the Roy J. Carver Foundation, and others. The Microbiology Department is housed in the new Chemical and Life Sciences Laboratory. All major equipment and technical expertise needed for research in microbiology, cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry are available, including recombinant DNA technology, DNA and RNA sequencing, polymerase chain reaction, polyclonal and monoclonal antibody production, FPLC for protein purification, UV-visible spectroscopy, and fluorescence and electron microscopy.
Specialized equipment is located in centralized service facilities.
The Electron Microscopy Center has facilities for transmission, scanning, and freeze fracture electron microscopy, and a computerized digitizing system for analysis of electron micrographs. An electronics and machine shop is maintained for the construction and repair of research equipment. All laboratory computers are connected via the network maintained by the Office of Information Technology. In addition, the department has computer facilities for analysis of DNA and protein sequences, and the University has several mainframe computers and supercomputers. Excellent library facilities are available.