Rohan Balakrishnan

Rohan Balakrishnan received his PhD in Biochemistry from the Ohio State University where he studied the role of ribosome associated factors in translation. He did his postdoctoral studies at UC San Diego studying the quantitative relationship between mRNA and protein in bacteria. He joined the department of Biology at UNT in the Fall of 2024.

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CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS

We are interested in the physiology of microbes and how to harness microbial biosynthetic capacity. Topics of active research include:

• • coordination between transcription-translation fluxes
  • protein homeostasis in starvation
  • resource allocation strategies during cellular response
  • kinetics of ppGpp signaling

FOR PROSPECTIVE GRADUATE STUDENTS

Apply to the Graduate Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

RECENT SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS

1. Rohan Balakrishnan and Jonas Cremer. Conditionally unutilized proteins and their profound effects on growth and adaptation across microbial species. 2023 Oct, Vol 75 102366. doi: 10.1016/j.mib.2023.102366 Current Opinion in Microbiology (link)
2. Guessous, G., Patsalo, V., Balakrishnan, R., Çağlar, T., Williamson, J. R., Hwa, T. Inheritance of secreted enzymes enables the sustained growth of dispersing marine bacteria on chitin particles. Nature Microbiology. 2023 Aug doi: 10.1038/s41564-023-01444-5 (link)
3. Balakrishnan, R†., Mori, M†., Segota, I., Zhang, Z., Okano, H., Aebersold, R., Ludwig, C., Hwa, T. Principles of gene regulation quantitatively connect  DNA to RNA and proteins in bacteria. Science. 2022 Dec, 9 Vol 378, Issue 6624, doi: 10.1126/science.abk2066 (link)†equal contribution
4. Wu, C†., Balakrishnan, R†., Braniff, N., Mori, M., Manzanarez, G., Zhang, Z., Hwa, T. Cellular perception of growth rate and the mechanistic origin of bacterial growth laws. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 May 17;119(20):e2201585119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2201585119. Epub 2022 May 11. (link) †equal contribution
5. Balakrishnan, R*., de Silva, RT., Hwa, T., Cremer, J*. (2021). Suboptimal proteome allocation during changing environments constrains bacterial response and growth recovery. Mol Syst Biol. 2021 Dec;17(12):e10597. doi: 10.15252/msb.202110597. (link)
6. Dai, X., Zhu, M., Warren, M., Balakrishnan, R., Okano, H., Williamson, J. R., Fredrick, K., Wang, YP., Hwa, T. (2018). Slowdown of Translational Elongation in Escherichia coli under Hyperosmotic Stress. mBio. 2018 Feb 13;9(1):e02375-17. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02375-17.
7. Gibbs, M. R., Moon, K. M., Chen, M., Balakrishnan, R., Foster, L. J., & Fredrick, K. (2017). Conserved GTPase LepA (Elongation Factor 4) functions in biogenesis of the 30S subunit of the 70S ribosome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jan 31;114(5):980-985. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1613665114. Epub 2017 Jan 17.
8. Dai, X., Zhu, M., Warren, M., Balakrishnan, R., Patsalo, V., Okano, H., Williamson, J. R., Fredrick, K., Wang, YP., Hwa, T. (2016). “Reduction of translating ribosomes enables Escherichia coli to maintain elongation rates during slow growth.” Nat Microbiol. 2016 Dec 12;2:16231. doi: 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2016.231.
9. Fleming, I. M., Paris, Z., Gaston, K. W., Balakrishnan, R., Fredrick, K., Rubio, M. A., & Alfonzo, J. D. (2016). A tRNA methyltransferase paralog is important for ribosome stability and cell division in Trypanosoma brucei. Sci rep. 2016 Feb 18;6:21438. doi: 10.1038/srep21438.
10. Balakrishnan, R.†, Oman, K†., Shoji, S., Bundschuh, R., and Fredrick, K. (2014) “The conserved GTPase LepA contributes mainly to translation initiation in Escherichia coli.” Nucleic Acids Res. 2014 Dec 1;42(21):13370-83. doi: 10.1093/nar/gku1098. Epub 2014 Nov 6. (link) †equal contribution