“I think we made a really clear case for doing this," Loreto said. "More than just the technology, we established a clear need and demand for our product which is really critical to differentiate a science project and a startup."
Deas is a biochemistry and biology major. Loreto, a biochemistry, biology, and data science major, is a student in the Clark Honors College and a recipient of the UO’s Presidential Scholarship. He was recently named as a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship.
The Startup Showcase event was part of the iGEM Grand Jamboree in Paris, an annual expo that attracts hundreds of student teams from around the world to compete and collaborate to advance the field of synthetic biology. Competing in the category of Health and MedTech, the ClearMark team won the title following a pitch about their flagship product , a rapid concussion biosensor that can detect concussion biomarkers in saliva within 20 minutes of an injury using a colorimetric readout (similarly to a COVID-19 antigen test).
The product grew out of an idea proposed by a Knight Campus-based UO iGEM team that included Loreto and Deas and competed at the 2022 iGEM Grand Jamboree. According to iGEM, more than 250 startup companies have grown out of the annual expo.
The 2024 UOregon iGEM team, based out of the lab of Knight Campus assistant professor Calin Plesa, recently won a silver medal in the Infectious Diseases category.
ClearMark Biosciences is a preclinical diagnostics company based in the Knight Campus Papé Family Innovation Center where the startup is collecting data from testing their proprietary technology to support its patent application.
Deas and Loreto, past and current members respectively of the Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholars Program, have other ties to the Knight Campus, having both worked in the Plesa Lab.
"This is an exciting achievement that underscores the impact of our work here," said Plesa, who has advised Deas and Loreto, along with other Knight Campus iGEM team members. "They have been trailblazers in showing what undergraduates can do in scientific entrepreneurship at UO."
Loreto credited iGEM, the Knight Campus and Plesa’s mentorship for helping him gain experience, confidence and other skills.
“iGEM is what gave me the research skills I needed to build something entirely new,” Loreto said. “Calin's mentorship is iGEM. We use his lab space, he's the iGEM principal investigator, and always available as a sounding board for ideas … I think every student that joins the Plesa lab is the better for it, and there's a really unique culture (which absolutely shines through in iGEM) where students are empowered to take charge over their own research and really go further on their own.”