URI Pharmaceutical Development Institute

Dr Pluskal has worked in the Biotechnology field in the Boston area for 40+ years gaining a wide range of experience in chromatography, protein and nucleic acid purification, molecular biology, electrophoresis, synthesis of macromolecules and development of devices and hardware for analysis and sample preparation. Former positions included, Executive Vice President of New Technology and Business Development based in the Proteome Systems, Inc facility in Woburn, MA; Director of Bioseparations and Production for Unisyn Technologies, Inc; Director of Custom DNA and PNA Synthesis group in the Biosearch Division of Millipore Corporation: Senior Consulting Scientist in Corporate R&D at Millipore Corporation; Senior Scientist in Chemical R&D Waters Division of Millipore Corporation.

Dr. Pluskal received his Ph.D. in 1976 and was a Muscular Dystrophy Post-Doctoral Fellow in the area of aging influence’s on muscle protein synthesis and regulation of gene expression in developing muscle at the level of translational control. On leaving academia for a career at Millipore Corporation, Dr. Pluskal developed key technology in PVDF based blotting membranes, 2D-gel electrophoresis hardware, pre-cast gel technology, carbohydrate analysis by electrophoresis, membrane base chromatography resin development and purification applications. His work has led to several successful products in use today in Proteomics and protein purification leading to 4 granted US patents with several pending. He has published extensively in sample preparation, Proteomics, protein purification and synthetic chemistry areas. More recently, Dr Pluskal has held leadership positions focused on biomolecule chromatography applications at Pall Corporation, Thermo-Fisher Scientific and JNC Corporation. His wide experience has also been applied in education leading to the development of range of lectures and "hands on training" courses supporting academic training in Biotechnology.