The University of Iowa has been awarded $1.5 million to advance materials science research by leveraging various materials’ features for quantum technologies. The award also will position the university’s MATFab facility as a regional innovator.

Susan Shen, assistant professor of psychiatry in the Carver College of Medicine, is the first from UI and the first female psychiatrist to receive a coveted Avenir Award grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Shen attributes winning the award to a supportive department and a “bold” grant proposal.

From new hospitals to national championships, satellites launching into space to a record incoming class of students and more, the University of Iowa's accomplishments in 2025 were many. This video takes you back to the special moments.

UI Health Care researchers designed a new device to improve convenience and quality of life for bladder cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. About the size of a dime, the device floats in the bladder and slowly delivers the drug. Patients don’t need to stay at the clinic and would be able to remove the device themselves.

University of Iowa researchers have modeled how to create more efficient, secure, and scalable quantum technologies through “purifying” the photon generators central to the circuitry. In a new study, the researchers report how to resolve two central challenges to generating a stream of single photons.

UI business analytics professor Jeff Ohlmann is studying crowdshipping, where customers — who are not store employees — would be asked to deliver merchandise ordered online in exchange for a gift card or other incentive. He says they’d first need to be registered and screened.

The UI College of Pharmacy announced a new initiative — supported by Eli Lilly Co. — to boost Iowa’s low lung cancer screening rates by embedding screenings in community pharmacies across the state. Led by Jill Kolesar, dean and Jean M. Schmidt chair in drug discovery, the program expands access, especially for rural and underserved Iowans, through innovative, community-based care.

Grace Lidgett breathes easier while running and at rest, thanks to a revolutionary cystic fibrosis treatment that evolved from decades of UI Health Care research led by Michael Welsh. Learn how the remarkable research allowed her to chase her dreams.

From fun at Iowa football games, to cutting-edge research, to students in their residence hall rooms — and everything in between — check out the fall 2025 semester in these 16 frames.

University of Iowa biologists discovered that a New Zealand freshwater snail duplicated its entire genome, capturing a rare evolutionary transitory state. The finding shows how large-scale genetic events can generate the raw material needed to fuel significant new adaptations and innovations in animals.

Fruit fly mating is reminiscent of a medieval romance. Male fruit flies vibrate their wings to produce a unique courtship song that attracts females, who promptly choose whether they want to mate with the male. The antennae of fruit flies are always vibrating, even when there is no sound present. “These vibrations are at the courtship song frequency, which makes the antenna ten times more sensitive to sounds in that frequency,” said Daniel Eberl, professor of biology at the University of Iowa. This specific tuning helps female fruit flies process the courtship songs performed by males.

Ed Stone, professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and director of the Institute for Vision Research at the UI, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Michael J. Welsh, MD, University of Iowa professor of internal medicine, has won the 2025 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for his fundamental research on cystic fibrosis (CF), which paved the way to new therapies that have transformed the health and life expectancy of people with CF.

The Lasker Awards, which honor fundamental discoveries and clinical advances that improve human health, were given on Thursday to scientists for discovering hidden complexity in cells, new states of biological matter, and a potent treatment for cystic fibrosis.

Kevin Campbell, professor and chair of molecular physiology and biophysics at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, will receive the 2025 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. Campbell will share the prize, which is awarded annually for groundbreaking work in medical science, with fellow researchers Louis Kunkel and Eric Olson for discoveries that revealed the biological causes of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and provide the foundation for breakthrough treatments for this and related muscular diseases.

University of Iowa engineers have refined the design for an underwater vehicle to move more freely and with more maneuverability. The design changes mimic the octopus’ papillae muscles, which can be uncoiled on a moment’s notice for camouflage and to aid movement when flow conditions change in the water.