When Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) announced agreements with four American and three British universities to license DNA sensing technology and to fund future research, the University of Illinois was one of the four thanks to ECE Professor Jean-Pierre Leburton, ECE and Bioengineering Professor Rashid Bashir, and Physics Associate Professor Aleksei Aksimentievall researchers in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technologyas well as their collaborators and campus support facilities.