Dr. Oren Pleniceanu

Dr. Oren Pleniceanu is a faculty member at the Faculty of Medicine and a member of Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Pleniceanu completed his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Tel-Aviv University. He was awarded the 2022 Ziegler Award for outstanding researcher under 40 by The Israeli National for Science in Medicine. In addition, he was selected to the prestigious Physician-Researcher program of the Sheba Medical Center, and has won multiple research grants, including the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Ministry of Science, Israeli Society of Nephrology & Hypertension and Israel Cancer Association.

Dr. Pleniceanu’s lab utilizes state-of-the-art technologies to study three key processes that are of immense importance at all stages of life: (1) Development and stem cells: by using various 3D organoid in-vitro and in-vivo models, the lab seeks to uncover the basic mechanisms that govern organogenesis, as well as finding innovative ways to harness these insights in regenerative medicine; (2) Human aging: The lab focuses on cellular senescence, which has been shown in recent years to play a key role in organismal aging and various chronic diseases. Specifically, through the use of single cell-based transcriptomic and epigenomic methods, the lab seeks to uncover the molecular landscape of senescent cells and devise ways to eliminate them in order to combat aging and age-related disorders; (3) Kidney cancer: the lab seeks to use AI-based approaches and CRISPR-based gene editing to uncover the mechanisms driving this common yet lethal type of cancer.