URBANA, Ill. (U.S.A.) — If you ate, filled your gas tank, took medicine, or did laundry today, you likely participated in the bioeconomy. That’s the part of the economy that taps as its source material living, growing things. With great potential to reduce waste, grow markets for farmers, and create new jobs, the bioeconomy depends on biotechnology innovations and all the processes and policies required to get those products to your local superstore, pharmacy, grocery store, gas pump, or agricultural supplier.
In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, today’s bioeconomy touches nearly every aspect of our lives. And new technologies and programs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are leading the way, now and into the future.
That’s especially obvious this month. Hundreds of international scientists, industry leaders, elected officials, and other federal representatives descended upon campus for multiple events in September. Some visited the headquarters of the Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing (iFAB) Tech Hub, others gathered for Biofoundry Week, and still more participated in the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment’s 2025 Congress, titled “A Circular Bioeconomy as a Path to Net-Zero.” And that’s just a snapshot of campus activities in this space.
“We’re a hotbed of innovation,” said Susan Martinis, vice chancellor for research and innovation at Illinois. “We back up our big ideas with real deliverables — new technologies, startup companies, federal partnerships, and workforce development programs. The applied work happening here shows that Illinois is not just talking about the bioeconomy, we’re building it.”
Defining the bioeconomy
Using living organisms and natural biological processes to create everyday necessities isn’t new. For nearly all of human history, people have relied on natural products: sprinkling yeast into bread dough, growing flax for linen fiber, burning wood for heat, and harnessing plants and fungi for medicinal use.
Now, scientists are leveraging decades of discovery research in biotechnology, along with advances in AI, synthetic biology, biomanufacturing, and supply chain optimization to develop scalable, cross-cutting solutions that touch industries as diverse as transportation, textiles, food, healthcare, and cosmetics.
As just a few examples, U. of I. researchers and industry partners are
Why now?
These advancements, and many others, are coming just in time when America urgently needs more domestic sources of energy and products, as well as innovations to drive economic growth across the agricultural, energy, and manufacturing sectors.
“Innovations in the bioeconomy and transformations in agricultural systems are not optional — they are essential,” said Jeremy Guest, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Levenick Center for a Climate-Smart Circular Bioeconomy. “Building circular supply chains that reduce demand for fertilizer, build soil organic matter, and maintain clean water can increase profits and reduce dependence on imports, while also ensuring that rural and urban communities share in the benefits.”
Federal policy has created an urgency to advance the bioeconomy. In 2022, President Biden signed an executive order laying out a national strategy to accelerate biotechnology and biomanufacturing innovation while securing supply chains. And in 2025, the bipartisan National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) — who recently visited iFAB — stated, “We stand at the edge of a new industrial revolution, one that depends on our ability to engineer biology. Emerging biotechnology, coupled with artificial intelligence, will transform everything from the way we defend and build our nation to how we nourish and provide care for Americans.”
Now is the time to go all in, with a coordinated scientific approach. Fortunately, U. of I. researchers have been laying the foundations for decades, and their work is bearing fruit.
One project in particular, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), is developing the scientific understanding and new technologies needed to advance feedstock production and conversion of crops into valuable fuels, chemicals, and products — all while optimizing bioeconomy systems design. This work is foundational to economic growth, on-shoring of supply chains, and greater resilience.
Building on that foundation, new initiatives like the Biomass Innovation Hub are building public-private partnerships to de-risk the adoption of the new crops and technologies by farmers and industry. This will expand Illinois’ capacity and position the state at the forefront of a sustainable bioeconomy.
Andrew Leakey, Michael Aiken Chair and professor of plant biology at Illinois, has served as director of CABBI since 2020.
“Energy independence has become an increasingly important security issue for the United States, and CABBI will continue to provide breakthroughs toward a new generation of domestic, cost-effective biofuels and bioproducts,” Leakey said. “DOE’s investment in CABBI, which includes Illinois and over 20 partners in states spread from coast-to-coast, makes us a national hub for scale-up in the bioenergy space, and we are committed to helping push the U.S. toward a new bio-based economy.”
Bioeconomy U: Land-grant history, 21st century tech
The bioeconomy runs on a wide variety of raw materials, but byproducts from corn and soybean are currently among the biggest players. As the top soybean- and number two corn-growing state in the nation, Illinois has the agricultural know-how and the raw materials the industry can use to develop products like aviation fuel, bioplastics, industrial chemicals, textiles, and more. And Central Illinois offers unmatched connectivity, with reliable transportation networks that link farmers and innovators directly to major processors and markets across the country.
“As Illinois’ land-grant institution, we have always been here to listen to and respond to farmers and communities around the state,” said Germán Bollero, dean of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at U. of I. “From the beginning, our research has helped corn and soybean growers maximize yields and profits. Now we’re excited to support this new frontier, which will create lucrative new markets for our growers.”
In addition to its fertile ground, U. of I. attracts top researchers in fields that are foundational to the bioeconomy, including everything from agriculture, engineering, and synthetic biology to genomics and machine learning. But they are only part of the picture. Creating a viable bioeconomy means pairing these experts with specialists in biomanufacturing, sustainable product life cycles, industrial scaling, economics, and workforce development so that good concepts don’t languish in the lab.
That’s happening at U. of I.
“We’re very unique,” said Huimin Zhao, professor and Steven L. Miller Chair in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Illinois. “We’ve built the end-to-end pipeline for biomanufacturing — finding the enzymes and microorganisms, engineering them to make useful products, then scaling up so the industry can take over.”
That pipeline starts in the acres of corn, soybeans, and biomass crops south of campus, veers indoors to traditional and AI-powered robot-assisted laboratories, quietly multiplies in the pilot-scale fermentation tanks at the Integrated Bioprocessing Research Lab, and finally moves off campus — often with a stop at Research Park’s EnterpriseWorks business incubator — for mass production and commercialization. But that’s only one route. Industry partners can also leverage the Feed Technology Center and the Food Science and Human Nutrition Pilot Processing Plant to create new livestock, pet, and human food products.
Every step of the way, students are being trained in the latest agricultural, biological, AI, automation, and industrial methods, creating the workforce required to power over 53,300 industrial bioeconomy jobs in the U.S., according to a 2024 report.
At U. of I., the pieces fit together: land-grant roots, advanced science, industry buy-in, and future leaders, all working in concert to turn the promise of the bioeconomy into practice.