Biology PhD candidate optimizing gene synthesis technologies in the Plesa lab at the University of Oregon Knight Campus. SJSU Spartan and UO duck! 🦆

Joined June 2020
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Let's talk about how close we are to a cell-free mirror image central dogma in a tube, aka Mirror-PURE! This topic has been getting a lot of attention due to the recent @ScienceMagazine letter (science.org/doi/10.1126/scie…) outlining the threats posed by mirror life. 1/n

ALT The Matrix Mirror GIF

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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Representing @uoregon Knight Campus Department of Bioengineering at #BMES2024! We're here to share insights, connect with colleagues, and showcase innovative research. It’s inspiring to see so much talent and dedication gathered together. #KnightCampus #Bioengineering
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
1. Check out our MS just out! Amazing Mauricio Aguilar developed a new ML pipeline that identifies ribosome pausing sites as an Anomaly Detection problem to overcome spurious signals that arise when analyzing RiboSeq data. science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…
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I'm honored to receive this award and am grateful for all of the support from @OregonBio. This experience, as well as the pitch coaching, has helped me to become a better science communicator.
Congratulations @TrieneToScience for winning the people’s choice award at the Oregon Bio Innovation Showcase today!!
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Our @UOKnightCampus @iGEM team this year is developing methods to fight enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC). They just launched a @uoregon DuckFunder fundraiser to send more team members to the final competition jamboree in France: duckfunder.uoregon.edu/proje…
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
25 Jul 2024
Interested in antibody generation and expression of human proteins in bacteria? If you're at @ProteinSociety tonight check out poster 75 at Bayshore Grand Ballroom D with @MuggleInSynbio to hear about expressing the human proteome in E. coli. @UOKnightCampus
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This is an incredibly moving story!
Powerful 1st-person piece by Knight Campus Dept of Bioengineering Asst Prof Parisa Hosseinzadeh on her long road to recovery following a brain hemorrhage in Nov. 2022. We are so inspired by your strength & determination Parisa and are happy to see you growing stronger every day
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
23 Jul 2024
At @ProteinSociety tonight check out poster 73 with @AlkynesOfSci to hear about our efforts to deorphanize sensor histidine kinases en masse & poster 117 with @TrieneToScience to hear about BAR-CAT, our approach to scalable enrichment of assembled gene libraries. @UOKnightCampus
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
We are leading a new initiative in Synthetic Biology and Aging and are recruiting multiple postdocs and research assistants/technicians to join us! Details and application links here. Please RT. #longevity pages.uoregon.edu/pphil/synb…

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I think authenticity is important for good research and mentorship!
When I was in undergrad & volunteering for girls in engineering outreach events a friend told me: “Don’t be afraid to be your feminine self. It’s good for them to see that example.” Since then I’ve felt free to dress how I want & am so grateful for it.
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Tune in for this great panel line-up!
The next @EngBioRC SPA panel is Feb 5th! Please RT/share! 🧬 Are you an undergraduate or Master’s student and applying to graduate school or thinking about it? 📺 Attend our panel to prepare for the interview process! 🔗 Register here: forms.gle/fAs6dr6aAD1WjFbp8

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Looks like it's time to explore a new era in genome engineering!
25 Jan 2024
Just shared at @KeystoneSymp a new @ArcInstitute discovery of the bridge RNA recombinase mechanism: a new class of natural RNA-guided systems that retains the key property of programmability from RNAi and CRISPR while enabling large-scale genome design beyond RNA and DNA cuts
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Story time! Introducing the first of several new flavors of DropSynth #genesynthesis we have been working on, cooked up by @AlkynesOfSci and Sam Hinton. TLDR: We show multiple gene variants assembled per barcoded droplet and 1 kbp lengths. 1/n biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Wonderful job!
It was a pleasure to give a talk!
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A well deserved award for @PlesaLab @calinplesa !
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Calin Plesa who was named the 2023-24 Clark Honors College (@uohonors) Outstanding Senior Thesis Advisor! Plesa was nominated by former Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholars (KCUS) fellow Carmen Resnick.
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Going to the #NDiSTEM conference today? Come by our booth to learn more about opportunities in our Bioengineering PhD and Masters Graduate Internship Program ! (Cool swag included 😉) @UO_KCGradIntern @UOKnightCampus
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Natanya Villegas retweeted
Roughly half the world's population is infected with H. pylori, a leading cause of stomach cancer. A group of UO undergraduates are working on a probiotic they hope could be a gamechanger. The iGEM team is raising funds to take their project to Paris: brnw.ch/21wCypS
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Carmen, Yuki, and I representing @PlesaLab from @UOKnightCampus at #VariantEffect23 ! It's been a pleasure to see the amazing research and to share our work.
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Same here! Looking forward to @EngBioRC 2023
Excited to be on my way to the @EngBioRC Annual Meeting
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