Manus Bio was founded with the vision to disrupt traditional chemical manufacturing to grant sustainable and equitable access to Nature’s most precious products.

Translation of innovations born out of MIT

Named after MIT’s motto “Mens et Manus” or “Mind and Hand,” Manus Bio represents the practical application and translation of the innovative thought and theory developed by its two co-founders – Dr. Aji Parayil and Dr. Greg Stephanopoulos.

Dr. Stephanopoulos (Co-Founder), a renowned professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, established the field of Metabolic Engineering more than three decades ago and developed many of the governing principles for engineering cell factories for a variety of applications. Dr. Aji Parayil (Co-Founder and CEO) built upon this core foundation and extended its application to the production of a wide array of natural products found in plants. Plants are the most “advanced” chemists, thought Dr. Parayil. “What if there was a way to harness this more efficiently through biotechnology?”

Foundational growth rooted in large industries

In 2011, Manus Bio was founded with the support of two industrial giants who saw the enormous potential of the technology to solve many sourcing pain points within their respective industries. With the help of MIT colleague Dr. Christine Santos (CTO) and other MIT scientists, Dr. Parayil translated these early scientific findings into a commercial platform for biomanufacturing a variety of complex natural products.

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