Ajikumar “Aji”Parayil is an entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience intechnological innovation and commercialization. He is the Founder and ChiefExecutive Officer of Manus, the proven BioAlternatives scale-up platform. Heinvented Manus’ core technology platform at the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (MIT), launched Manus in 2011, and led the successfulcommercialization of multiple products – BioAlternatives – made throughprecision fermentation. Notably, Aji has pioneered several novel methods forengineering chemistry using biology to biomanufacture complex naturalchemicals. His contributions are reflected in more than 200 U. S. andinternational granted and pending patents, as well as more than 60 publicationsin biotechnology and chemical biology. He is an elected fellow of the AmericanInstitute of Medical and Bioengineering (AIMBE) and received the Society ofIndustrial Microbiology’s (SIMB) Raphael Katzen Award in 2021 for enabling thedeployment and commercialization of biotechnology to produce fuels andchemicals from renewable resources.‍