Bio

Blake Rasor joined the faculty of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in fall 2025 as a part of the new biomanufacturing-focused cluster. His research combines systems and synthetic biology approaches to engineer biocatalysis platforms. The goal is to convert light and carbon dioxide into sustainable chemicals ranging from fuels to pharmaceuticals, harnessing biology to utilize these abundant natural resources while minimizing environmental impacts.

Blake received a B.S. in biology & microbiology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Then he earned a Ph.D. in chemical & biological engineering from Northwestern University, working with Prof. Mike Jewett to study and engineer metabolism in cell-free systems. Before joining NC State, Blake was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, where he worked with Prof. Tobias Erb to study photosynthesis using components from algae and cyanobacteria.

 

Publications

• Cell-free pathway prototyping enables cost-effective biomanufacturing of 1,2,4-butanetriol at the 1-L scale , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2026)
• Addendum: Carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale , Nature Biotechnology (2025)
• Building complex biochemicals from one-carbon compounds , Nature Synthesis (2025)
• Cell-Free Systems to Mimic and Expand Metabolism , ACS Synthetic Biology (2025)
• Cell-Free Gene Expression: Methods and Applications , Chemical Reviews (2024)
• A dynamic kinetic model captures cell-free metabolism for improved butanol production , Metabolic Engineering (2023)
• At-Home, Cell-Free Synthetic Biology Education Modules for Transcriptional Regulation and Environmental Water Quality Monitoring , ACS Synthetic Biology (2023)
• At-home, cell-free synthetic biology education modules for transcriptional regulation and environmental water quality monitoring , bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (2023)
• Cell Extracts from Bacteria and Yeast Retain Metabolic Activity after Extended Storage and Repeated Thawing , ACS Synthetic Biology (2023)
• Establishing a versatile toolkit of flux enhanced strains and cell extracts for pathway prototyping , Metabolic Engineering (2023)

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