What do we do?
The Plesa lab focuses on accelerating the pace at which we understand and engineer biological protein-based systems. Our primary interest is in scaling. Developing technologies which can address biological questions at scales of several order of magnitude more than existing approaches. Towards this end, we develop new technologies for gene synthesis, multiplex functional assays, in-vivo mutagenesis, and genotype-phenotype linkages for a number of different research areas and applications. These allow us to both access the huge sequence diversity present in natural systems as well as carry out testing of rationally designed hypotheses encoded onto DNA at much larger scales than previously possible.
Latest Publications
DropSynth-Gold: Golden Gate Assembly in Emulsions Extends Multiplexed Gene Libraries to Greater Lengths
bioRxiv preprint: doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.29.728538 - SRA NGS data - GitHub code - project website
bioRxiv preprint: doi.org/10.64898/2026.05.29.728538 - SRA NGS data - GitHub code - project website
High diversity gene libraries facilitate machine learning guided exploration of fluorescent protein sequence space
bioRxiv preprint: 10.64898/2026.03.01.706892 - supplementary info - Addgene deposits - SRA NGS data - GitHub code 1 - GitHub code 2 - FigShare data
bioRxiv preprint: 10.64898/2026.03.01.706892 - supplementary info - Addgene deposits - SRA NGS data - GitHub code 1 - GitHub code 2 - FigShare data
Exploring Antibiotic Resistance in Diverse Homologs of the Dihydrofolate Reductase Protein Family through Broad Mutational Scanning
Publication - Preprint - Supplementary info - Code - Data1 - Data2
Publication - Preprint - Supplementary info - Code - Data1 - Data2
