We are honored to be recognized as one of the Top 10 Undergraduate Teams at the iGEM 2025 Grand Jamboree. This highlighted our overall project execution, strength of ideas and the rigorous effort we put into achieving excellence in every aspect of the competition.
This recognition reflects the dedication and hard work of our team. From designing and implementing our project to engaging with the community and addressing real-world challenges, we strived to create a meaningful contribution to synthetic biology, as well as improving the overall living situation of patients.
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Impactful Human Practices By building a systematic, reflective, and inspiring Human Practices system, this year we engaged with diverse stakeholders such as industry experts, researchers, legal professionals and patient communities to ensure every engineering step of project are enhanced by voice from public. Furthermore, we engaged in extensive exchanges and cooperation with worldwide iGEM teams, contributing to a better iGEM community.
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Extensive Education Outreach Over the past year, we carried out a focused educational effort guided by the principle of “Broaden–Deepen–Iterate–Sustain”. Enhanced by Virtual Laboratory and Education Platform, we bring education to further individuals. Our goal was not only to teach, but to create a genuine two-way dialogue—listening as much as sharing, and refining every step based on feedback and reflection.
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Comprehensive and innovative Modeling Our modeling work integrated biological interpretability, mathematical simulations, and multi-scale system optimization to provide a comprehensive foundation for our project. From biomarker identification to RNA sensor design and physiological-level simulations, our modeling pipeline not only supported feasibility but also created novel perspectives for non-invasive cancer monitoring. Furthermore, our modeling work goes beyond technical design into the space of society. With BEAM, teams can predict and assess potential ethical risks, converting abstract ethical relationships into quantifiable and inferable outcomes.
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Outstanding Art Design Art bridged our team's belief to the public. Within our Wiki, the central character, blue–green-haired female knight, stands as both an artistic emblem and a medium of scientific communication. She embodies guardianship not only for patients affected by breast cancer but also for our ongoing pursuit of scientific truth.
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Holistic Project Documentation Our meticulously maintained and well-structured wiki provides transparency and replicability. From experimental design to human practice activities, every aspect of our project has been documented to inspire and guide future teams.
Our project, ABCS, pioneers the integration of synthetic biology with breast reconstruction surgery by implanting engineered adipocytes that act as a real-time cancer surveillance system. This innovative approach allows for continuous, non-invasive monitoring of cancer recurrence, thus addressing a crucial gap in post-surgery follow-up care for breast cancer patients.
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Focus on the overall well-being of patients Our project placed insight into the psychological needs of patients after breast cancer surgery. Recognizing the anxiety and stress that often accompany in follow-up examination of breast cancer, we designed ABCS to offer a non-invasive, continuous monitoring solution. This approach minimizes the discomfort of traditional examination methods, allowing patients to feel more in control of their health. By providing real-time feedback on their cancer status, our system helps reduce the mental burden of constant worry, enhancing the overall well-being of individuals in their post-cancer recovery journey.
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Innovative Diagnostic Approach Our project introduces the RADAR (RNA sensing using adenosine deaminases acting on RNA) system as a cutting-edge RNA detection technology for breast cancer surveillance. By incorporating a sensor element into living adipocytes, RADAR enables the real-time and intercellular detection of biomarkers, PLOD2 and LIF, through RNA editing, ensuring both accessibility and accuracy in cancer diagnostics.
We have built a systematic, reflective, and inspiring Human Practices system, which have not only embedded Human Practices into every stage of ABCS project but also created transferable frameworks, tools, and feedback loops to ensure our work is responsible to the world by reducing anxiety of post-surgery check-up among breast cancer patients and making the process more accessible and convenient, especially in a stage often overlooked in patient care.
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We developed three proprietary theoretical frameworks (SCQAI, Dual-Track Framework, and the Concentric Stakeholder Engagement Framework) to ensure that our IHP work was strategic, systematic, and aligned with both scientific goals and societal needs, thereby laying a rigorous and replicable foundation for IHP execution.
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Through extensive community interviews and stakeholder engagement, we engaged with 98 members of the public (53 breast cancer patients) to gain insight into their concerns and practical needs. We started from real pain points and centered the project on addressing the unmet needs of the public, rather than pure technical exploration.
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We established a “Concentric Stakeholder Framework” to integrate insights from 25 stakeholders across 16 distinct professional domains, including academic experts, clinicians, lawyer, and project managers from pharmaceutical enterprises. With continuous feedback, ABCS’s features have been iteratively improved.
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Against the backdrop of insufficient ethical tools in synthetic biology, we created the BEAM Ethical Risk Assessment Model through expert interviews and public surveys to ensure responsible innovation.
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We created an “AI-Powered Ethical Screening Procedure” to assist our team in crafting interviews that are both sensitive and impactful when working with vulnerable groups, like breast cancer patients. By using Doubao AI to simulate patient interviews, we identified sensitive questions and refined phrasing to ensure ethical dialogue.
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After interviewing experts from various fields related to commercialization, we developed the “Lab-to-Market Commercialization Toolkit”—which includes the Business Canvas, Brand Strategy House, iGEM Entrepreneurship Practice Simulation, and a Comprehensive Business Plan—to address the challenge of translating lab innovations into real-world applications.
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What we built is not just a technical solution, but a dynamic “demand – feedback – improvement loop” that connects science with people. Each interview, and field research feeds into an ongoing cycle of listening, refining, and applying—growing with every voice we hear and every challenge we face.
Gold Medal
Silver Medal
Criterion
Description
Link
Excellence in Synthetic Biology
Impress the judges with your work towards three Special Prizes of your choice. You must demonstrate excellence in both General Biological Engineering and in at least one Specialization. Note: Software and AI Village teams cannot select the Software Special Prize as a Gold medal criterion. By competition rules, teams in the Software and AI Village are not eligible to win the Software Special Prize.
Find our integrated human practices page here.
Silver Medal
For Engineering Success
iGEM requires all teams to complete the Engineering cycle of Design-Build-Test-Learn on their own projects. We have completed 4 DBLT Engineering cycle to identify biomarkers, design sensor sequence, explore reaction kinetics and ethical assessment. We identify biomarkers with Attention-MLP modeling and verified expression of PLOD2 and LIF via experiments. Based on it, we design our sensor sequence and build whole RADAR system in adipocyte to detect PLOD2 and LIF. To verify our building, we test it by fluorescence microscopy imaging and luminescence measurement under both cytokine and MDA-MB-231 conditioned medium tratement. We built dynamics model of Gluc and test it in wet-lab to provide theoretical and data support for Gluc's detection. Finally we built and tested BEAM to deal with ethical chellenges of our project. In each engineering cycle, we observed and analyze result so that it can promote the next engineering cycle, thereby achieve our project.
For Human Practices
We ensured our project is responsible by actively engaging with diverse stakeholders, including breast surgeons, plastic surgeons, ethics experts, biotech industry professionals, legal advisors, and breast cancer patients. Through this broad consultation process, we refined our project both scientifically and ethically, ensuring that it addresses the real needs of medical professionals and patients alike. By integrating public feedback, scientific advances, ethical principles, and a detailed business plan, we deliver an innovative and responsible approach to breast cancer surveillance that ultimately enhances patient care.
Bronze Medal
Criterion
Description
Link
Engineering Success
Demonstrate engineering success in a technical aspect of your project by going through at least one iteration of the engineering design cycle.
Find our engineering page here.
Human Practices
Explain how you have determined your work is responsible and good for the world.
Find our human practices page here.
Bronze Medal
Criterion
Description
Link
Competition Deliverables
Complete the following Competition Deliverables: Wiki, Presentation Video, Judging Form, and Judging Session.
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We have designed and submitted our wiki.
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Our presentation video will be handed in after the wiki freeze on the iGEM uploads platform.
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Find our judging form.
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We are looking forward to the judging session.
Project Attributions
Describe what work your team members did, as well as what other people did for your project, using the standardized Project Attributions Form.
Find our attributions form here.
