Prof. Christopher Rao

Ray and Beverly Mentzer Professor; Dept Head, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Christopher Rao is the Head and Ray and Beverly Mentzer Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is also the Deputy Director for the Energy & Biosciences Institute and a member of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation. He received his B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Prior to beginning his career at Illinois, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Rao received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2007, the High Impact Paper Award from the International Federation of Automatic Control in 2010, Helen Corley Petit Scholar from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2011, the Outstanding Young Research Award from the Computing and Systems Technology Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2012, the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research from the College of Engineering in 2014, and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the School of Chemical Sciences at Illinois in 2008 and 2023. His research program focuses on 1) discovering how microorganisms sense and respond to their environment and 2) engineering microorganisms to produces fuels and valued-added chemicals from plant biomass.

Research Interests

Systems and Synthetic Biology

Publications

Selected Journals

A. H. Badur, M. J. Plutz, G. Yalamanchili, S. S. Jagtap, T. Schweder, F .Unfried, S. Markert, M. F. Polz, J. H. Hehemann, C. V. Rao. Exploiting Fine-scale Genetic and Physiological Variation of Closely Related Microbes to Reveal Unknown Enzyme Functions. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2017
D. G. Christensen, J. S. Orr, C V. Rao, A. J. Wolfe AJ. Increasing growth yield and decreasing acetylation in Escherichia coli by optimizing the carbon-to-magnesium ratio in peptide-based media. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 2017
M. Sim, S. Koirala, D. Picton, H. Strahl, P. A. Hoskisson, C. V. Rao, C. S. Gillespie, P. D. Aldridge. Growth rate control of flagellar assembly in Escherichia coli strain RP437. Scientific Reports. 2017.
S. Koirala and C. V. Rao. Dynamic measures of flagellar gene expression. Methods in Molecular Biology, 2017.
S. Zhang, M. Ito, J. M. Skerker, A.P. Arkin AP, C. V. Rao. Metabolic engineering of the oleaginous yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides IFO0880 for lipid overproduction during high-density fermentation. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 2016.
Y. Cao Y, M. D. Ryser, S. Payne, B. Li, C. V. Rao, L You. Collective Space-Sensing Coordinates Pattern Scaling in Engineered Bacteria. Cell. 2016 Apr 21;165(3):620-30.
J. Zhou, K. Wu, C. V. Rao. Evolutionary engineering of Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius for improved ethanol production. Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 2016.
Rutter CD, Rao CV. Production of 1-decanol by metabolically engineered Yarrowia lipolytica. Metabolic Engineering. 2016 Jul 26;38:139-147.
A. Shenoy, C. V. Rao, C. M. Schroeder. Stokes Trap: Multiplexed particle manipulation and assembly using fluidics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(15):3976-81, 2016.
J. J. Liu, I. I. Kong, G. C. Zhang, L. N. Jayakody, H. Kim, P. F. Xia, S. Kwak, B. H. Sung, J. H.. Sohn, H. E. Walukiewicz, C. V. Rao, Y. S. Jin. Metabolic engineering of a probiotic Saccharomyces boulardii. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 82(8):2280-7, 2016.
S. Koirala and C. V. Rao. Reciprocal regulation of arabinose and xylose metabolism in Escherichia coli. Journal of Bacteriology, 198:386-93, 2015.
S. Zhang, J. M. Skerker, C. D. Rutter, M. J. Maurer, A. P. Arkin, and C. V. Rao. Engineering Rhodosporidium toruloides for increased lipid production. Biotechnology and Bionengineering, 113(5):1056-66, 2016.
C. Rutter and C. V. Rao. Engineering Yarrowia lipolytica for Production of Medium-Chain Fatty Acids. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2015.
K. Dunn and C. V. Rao. High-throughput sequencing reveals adaptation-induced mutations in pentose-fermenting strains of Zymomonas mobilis. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 2015.
A. Badur, S. Jagtap, G. Yalamanchili, J.-K. Lee, H. Zhao, C. V. Rao. Alginate Lyases from Alginate-Degrading Vibrio splendidus 12B01 Are Endolytic. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 81(5):1865-73, 2015.
S. Lane, S. Zhang, N. Wei, C. V. Rao, Y-S Jin. Development and physiological characterization of cellobiose-consuming Yarrowia lipolytica. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 112:1012-22, 2015.
C. V. Rao and S. Koirala. Black and white with some shades of grey: the diverse responses of inducible metabolic pathways in Escherichia coli. Molecular Microbiology, 93(6):1079-83, 2014.
H. E. Walukiewicz, P. Tohidifar, G. W. Ordal, and C. V. Rao. Interactions among the three adaptation systems of Bacillus subtilis chemotaxis as revealed by an in vitro receptor-kinase assay. Molecular Microbiology, 93(6):1104-18, 2014.
S. Koirala, P. Mears, M. Sim, I. Golding, Y. R. Chemla, P. D. Aldridge, and C. V. Rao. A nutrient-tunable bistable switch controls motility in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. mBio, 2014.
P. J. Mears, S. Koirala, C. V. Rao, I. Golding, Y. R. Chemla YR. Escherichia coli swimming is robust against variations in flagellar number. Elife, 3:e01916, 2014.
K. L. Dunn, C. V. Rao. Expression of a xylose-specific transporter improves ethanol production by metabolically engineered Zymomonas mobilis. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology. 2014.
M. B. Byrne, Y. Kimura, A. Kapoor, Y. He, K. S. Mattam, K. M. Hasan, L. N. Olson, F. Wang, P. J. A. Kenis, C. V. Rao. Oscillatory Behavior of Neutrophils Under Opposing Chemoattractant Gradients Supports a Winner-Take-All Mechanism. Plos One, 2014.
C. Josenhans, K. Jung, C. V. Rao, and A. J. Wolfe. A Tale of Two Machines: A review of the BLAST meeting, Tucson, AZ, January 20-24, 2013. Molecular Microbiology, 91:6-25, 2014.
Y. He Y, D. Li, S. L. Cook, M. S. Yoon, A. Kapoor, C. V. Rao, P. J. Kenis, J. Chen, and F. Wang. Mammalian Target of Rapamycin and Rictor control neutrophil chemotaxis by regulating Rac/Cdc42 activity and the actin cytoskeleton. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 24:3369-80, 2013.