Gregory Stephanopoulos

Biosketch

Greg Stephanopoulos is the W.H. Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at MIT, and Instructor of Bioengineering at Harvard Medical School (1997-). He received his degrees in Chemical Engineering (BS from National Technical U. of Athens, M.S. from the U. of Florida and Ph.D. from the Univ. of Minnesota) and taught at Caltech between 1978-85, after which he was appointed Professor of ChE at MIT. He is a Fellow of AAAS, AIChE, AIMBE and SIMB, and has honorary doctorates from the Danish Technical University, Dortmund Univ. and the national Technical Univ. of Athens. He served on the Board of Directors and as President of AIChE (2016). He has co-authored or –edited 5 books, more than 450 papers (more than 60,000 citations) and 60 patents, and supervised more than 140 graduate and post-doctoral students. He co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Metabolic Engineering. He serves on the Editorial Boards of 10 scientific journals and the Advisory Boards of 5 ChE departments. Awards include election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 2003) and the Academy of Athens, 3 awards from AIChE (R.H. Wilhelm Award, Founders Award and Walker Award), the ACS E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, the George Washington Carver Award of BIO, the Eni Prize for Renewable and non-Conventional Energy, the John Fritz Medal of the AAAS, the 2016 Eric and Sheila Samson $1 Prime Minister Prize (Israel) and the 2017 Novozymes Prize.

Research Interests

Dr. Stephanopoulos initiated the field of metabolic engineering, the engineering of microbes for the production of fuels and chemicals. He developed experimental and theoretical methods for dissecting cellular metabolism using stable isotopic tracers and mathematical models that led to the identification of rate limiting steps in metabolic pathways. These methods thus guided efforts for genetic modulations and coordinated gene deletions and over-expressions that led to the creation of cellular biocatalysts overproducing numerous chemical products and biofuels. These include alcohols, compounds of the isoprenoid pathway, monomers, oils and biopolymers. The value of these engineered biocatalysts was demonstrated in medium and large scale fermentors and provided the basis for the founding of 3 stat-up companies. Similar overall approaches were also applied to the analysis of the metabolism of cancer cells in order to elucidate metabolic changes linked to the onset of cancer and this provide new targets for the therapy of cancer of metabolic origin.