Ramesh Jha

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Ramesh Jha is a Scientist in the Bioscience Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He received his PhD in Molecular Biophysics from UNC Chapel Hill in 2010. He currently leads and works with an interdisciplinary team of computational and synthetic biologists on development of biocatalysts and biosensors for conversion of renewable feedstock to value added chemicals, and biodegradation of recalcitrant anthropogenic molecules into non-toxic molecules or building blocks for bioremediation or biological recycling. Ramesh’s Smart Microbial Cell Technology for rapid screening of efficient biocatalysts was a recipient of R&D100 award in 2020. Within the ABF, Ramesh supports the Muconic acid and SAF-Ethanol tasks.

Projects in the Agile BioFoundry

  • LANL Lead for the Agile BioFoundry
  • Protein engineering 
  • Biosensors and high throughput screening

Featured Publications

  1. Huttanus HM, Triola EKH, Velasquez-Guzman JC, Shin SM, Granja-Travez RS, Singh A, Dale T, Jha RK#. Targeted mutagenesis and high-throughput screening of diversified gene and promoter libraries for isolating gain-of-function mutations. Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (2023), 11:1202388.
  2. Shin SM, Jha RK#, Dale T#. Tackling Catch-22 situation of optimizing a sensor and transporter system in a whole cell biosensor design for an anthropogenic small molecule. ACS Synthetic Biology (2022), 11(12), 3996.
  3. Pardo I*, Jha RK*, Bermel RE, Bratti F, Gaddis M, McIntyre, Michener W, Neidle EL, Dale T, Beckham GT, Johnson CW. Gene amplification, laboratory evolution, and biosensor screening reveal MucK as a terephthalic acid transporter in Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1. Metabolic Engineering (2020), 62, 260-274.
  4. Bentley GJ, Narayanan N, Jha RK, Salvachua D, Elmore JR, Peabody GL, … Guss AM, Dale T, Johnson CW, Beckham GT. Engineering glucose metabolism for enhanced muconic acid production in Pseudomonas putida KT2440. Metabolic Engineering (2020), 59, 64-75.
  5. Jha RK#, Narayanan N, Pandey N, Bingen J, Kern TL, Johnson CW, Strauss CEM, Beckham GT, Hennelly SP, Dale T#. Sensor-enabled alleviation of product inhibition in chorismate pyruvate-lyase. ACS Synthetic Biology (2019), 8(4), 775-786.
  6. Jha RK#, Bingen JM, Johnson CW, Kern TL, Khanna P, Trettel D, Strauss CEM, Beckham GT, Dale T#. A protocatechuate biosensor for Pseudomonas putida KT2440 via promoter and protein evolution. Metabolic Engineering Communications (2018), 6, 33-38.