Gregory Stephanopoulos

Gregory Stephanopoulos is the W.H. Dow Professor of Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering at MIT and Instructor of Bioengineering at Harvard Medical School since 1997. He previously served as Bayer Professor of Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering at MIT (2000-2005) and held visiting professorships at Milano Polytechnico (2013-2014) and ETH Zurich/DTU (2006-2007).

Dr. Stephanopoulos received his BS from the National Technical University of Athens, MS from the University of Florida, and PhD from the University of Minnesota, all in Chemical Engineering. He began his academic career at Caltech (1978-1985) before joining MIT where he has served in various capacities including Professor of Chemical Engineering (1985-2000) and Associate Director of the MIT Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (1990-1997).

His research focuses on metabolic engineering, specifically the engineering of microbes for production of fuels and chemicals with applications to industrial biotechnology and cancer metabolism. His work encompasses cell culture engineering, synthetic biology, metabolic pathway engineering for amino acid, alcohol, glycol, biopolymer, isoprenoid and vitamin production, and elucidation of metabolic rewiring in cancer cells using isotopic tracers. He has pioneered approaches in alternative substrates and feedstocks development.

Professor Stephanopoulos has co-authored or edited 5 books, published over 450 papers with 62,000 citations, and holds 60 patents. His publication record demonstrates consistent leadership in metabolic engineering, with recent work focusing on cancer metabolism applications and sustainable bioproduction systems.

His numerous honors include election to both the National Academy of Engineering (2003) and National Academy of Sciences (2023), the ENI Prize in Renewable Energy (2011), the Novozymes Award (2017), and the prestigious John Fritz Medal (2013). In 2021, the International Metabolic Engineering Society named their premier award after him.

Dr. Stephanopoulos has supervised more than 140 graduate and post-doctoral students throughout his career. He co-founded the journal Metabolic Engineering and served as co-editor-in-chief and on the editorial boards of 10 scientific journals. He has consulted extensively with global biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries and served on the Advisory Boards of 5 academic departments.

He maintains active laboratory research at MIT focusing on metabolic engineering applications, with particular emphasis on translating fundamental discoveries into industrial and medical applications. His lab continues to innovate in the areas of systems metabolic engineering and cancer metabolism.