A full-spectrum
human health solution

Photosynthetic

human milk oligosaccharides

for food and medicine

Totality Biosciences’ plant-based production platform unlocks the fast-growing but supply-constrained market of human milk oligosaccharide (HMO) ingredients for gut and immune health.

HMOs today are held back by high costs, challenging scale up, and a limited ability to replicate the complex HMOs found in breast milk.

Totality is the exclusive developer of food crops for HMOs. We are engineering plants for the transition to agricultural production of the full spectrum of HMOs, unlocking access to this proven category of health solutions, from birth and beyond.

A foundation for human health.

Human milk oligosaccharides
are nature’s way of helping a new baby adjust to life outside the womb.

Now we know that HMOs support health at any age, offering resilience across the lifespan.

HMOs are the guardians of the gut.

HMOs evolved to support our unique physiology

Decades of research have established that HMOs play diverse roles in supporting our health at the intestinal interface.

Feed the Microbiome

We don’t digest HMOs ourselves, but they are the ideal fuel for the unique community of beneficial microbes in our guts.

Block Infection

HMOs are well-evidenced antimicrobials that block pathogenic viruses and bacteria, including highly contagious diseases like staph, strep, and rotavirus infections.

Immune Calibration

HMOs help establish appropriate inflammatory and allergic responses. A well-regulated immune system is central to health and longevity.

But outside human lactation, HMOs remain mostly inaccessible.

Human milk is the only known source of most HMOs

Most HMOs are too structurally complex to produce outside of human lactation, leaving enormous potential just out of reach.

Research Scale
100s of studies have emerged over the last 2 decades, but most of the HMOs in current R&D libraries cannot be efficiently scaled for application

Commercial Scale
<5% of HMOs are scalable for commercial application in limited markets

Totality Biosciences
is leading the transition to agricultural production of HMOs.

Our technology

First, we engineer the instructions for HMO synthesis into plants.

Then, our plants build the HMOs by harnessing energy from the sun and capturing carbon from the air.

The engineered food crops provide a virtually unlimited source of HMOs for applications in human health.

Our capabilities range from simple HMO ingredients for infant and adult nutrition, to clinically critical complex HMOs that are urgently needed but unscalable today.

Learn more.

“We made all three major groups of human milk oligosaccharides. […] To my knowledge, no one has ever demonstrated that you could make all three of these groups simultaneously in a single organism.”

Patrick Shih, Totality Biosciences CSO and Co-Founder

Let’s work together!

Totality Biosciences was established in 2025 by an ambitious founding team based in Berkeley, CA and Hillsborough, NC.

We partner across multiple industries to supply the next generation of HMOs for consumer and clinical applications.

We’d love to hear from you if you are a product manufacturer interested in early access to our paradigm-changing approach!