Calin Plesa

Calin Plesa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Oregon, part of the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. He leads the Plesa Lab, which focuses on developing technologies for large-scale gene synthesis, protein engineering, and functional genomics. His research integrates biochemistry, synthetic biology, and quantitative approaches to explore sequence-function relationships in biological systems.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Bio-nanoscience (2015), Delft University of Technology
• M.Sc. in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (2009–2010), Delft University of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology
• B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics (2007), Simon Fraser University

Research Interests:

Dr. Plesa’s work centers on accelerating the understanding and engineering of biological systems. Key areas include:

• Gene synthesis technologies (e.g., DropSynth)
• Protein engineering for biosensors and antibiotic resistance studies
• Multiplex functional assays and mutational scanning
• Machine learning for sequence-function predictions
• Synthetic metagenomics and antibiotic target exploration

Research Trends: Recent work emphasizes CRISPR-Cas9 library optimization, antibiotic resistance mechanisms in DHFR homologs, and scalable gene synthesis methods.

Advising & Lab: He mentors graduate students (e.g., Andrew Holston, Anissa Benabbas) and oversees a dynamic team of postdocs (e.g., Natanya Villegas, Karl Romanowicz). The Plesa Lab actively develops tools for high-throughput biology and collaborates across disciplines.

Labs/Teams: The Plesa Lab is part of the Knight Campus, fostering innovation in synthetic biology and biotechnology. Projects span from foundational research to applied technologies like DropSynth, enabling large-scale DNA synthesis at reduced costs.