Medal Criteria
Bronze Medal
Silver Medal
Gold medal
Competition Deliverables: All necessary deliverables were correctly submitted on time; this included the wiki page, judging form, presentation video, safety forms, judging sessions, attribution form etc.
Attributions: Our standardized attributions page is a comprehensive acknowledgment of everyone, every team that helped us, and every organization or institution which offered something significant to our project's development. This makes sure that all assistance, advice and resource input gets put where it is deserved.
For a detailed breakdown of attributions, please visit our Attributions page at:
https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/attributions
Contribution: Our main contribution to iGEM is a new biosensor system for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease biomarkers. Our system is well characterized, and we provide detailed protocols to reproduce it. Our new parts are fully documented in the registry, so future teams working on diagnostics or protein detection have a new resource at their disposal.
For an explanation of how you can build on our work, please see our Contribution page: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/contribution
Simultaneously, we also nominated our new biological part, BBa_25OZUK7L (pET28a-cas12a) for fulfilling the contribution criterion. This part is a critical piece of our diagnostic system and we have characterized it with functional data.
Please visit the following registry link for details of this specific contribution part. https://registry.igem.org/parts/bba-25ozuk7l
Engineering Success: We have completed robust engineering design-build-test-learn cycles, and what's more, our project followed five consecutive engineering cycles to improve sensor sensitivity and specificity. Each cycle aimed to accomplish this goal within workable time scales, and so included things like optimizing the aptamer sequence for stronger binding and increasing its affinity; refining the CRISPR-Cas12a reporting mechanism so a clearer signal came from inside rather than only from outside; simplifying molecular structure and selecting only those parts which were necessary.
Each cycle built upon the data from the previous one, leading to a demonstrably better and more reliable diagnostic tool.
For a detailed documentation of our engineering journey, please access our Engineering page: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/engineering
Part Submission for Engineering Success: We also submitted a new biological part: BBa_259FM6T9 (pET28a-PHF6 domain) for fulfilling the criterion of engineering success. This part emerged directly from our iterative improvement cycles, which is essential for improving the final apparatus.
Human Practices: Our project was guided by sustained and meaningful contacts with society. We initiated conversations with neurologists, caregivers for Alzheimer's patients and biotech industry professionals. Their advice had a straight bearing on our project's course; for example, clinicians emphasized the importance of a noninvasive and inexpensive diagnostic. So this became a clarify enunciation part in its development. In turn, as our project evolved, we communicated our results to these communities in a two-way fashion that helped keep us on-message, ethically sound and constructive for society as a whole.
To see how our project evolved in response to this feedback, please access our Human Practices page: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/human-practices.
To fulfill the criterion of excellence in synthetic biology, we applied for two special prizes in specialization, and one special prize in general biological engineering.
Our project provides a vivid illustration of how human practices can be carved deeply into the scientific process. We did not speak with stakeholders in parallel - such dialogue was the bedrock of our work. We did not simply passively receive feedback; we actively allowed the needs, or the concerns of patients, doctors and families changed project goals and technical designs. We focused on making a diagnostic tool that was non-invasisve, easily, affordably and accessibly used because all our test subjects told us this was the one part which really mattered in practice. Our documentation offers a transparent, inspiring, mentor-worthy model for future teams on how they can ensure that their projects truly answer human wants.
Please vist our integrated human practices: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/human-practices.
We created a comprehensive business plan to be able to commercialize our iGEM project. Our plan defines a clear and urgent unmet need in today's healthcare market: early-stage, non-invasive diagnostics for Alzheimer's disease. We have defined the appropriate customer base for our product (neurology clinics, pharmaceutical companies and memory disorder centers), and a scalable business model. Our solution, a microfluidic chip which is based on aptamer and CRISPR system Cas 12a, is innovative and feasible. With realistic milestones, we have drawn together a complete product development roadmap including risk assessments and the need for all kinds of related stakeholders to come together. All this while bearing ethically in mind over the long horizon at what price point reaping these fruit really showed itself to be fair for society as a whole.
For the complete section on our business development and commercialization strategy, please see our Entrepreneurship page: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/entrepreneurship.
Our project is distinguished by its meticulous approach to measurement, featuring a complete and rigorously validated pipeline from part selection to final biosensor characterization. We believe our work is a strong candidate for the Best Measurement prize for the following reasons:
- Designed for Reproducibility: Our work is built for clear replication. We provide detailed, step-by-step protocols for every technique, including a precise round-by-round guide for our SELEX process. This meticulous documentation ensures that other teams can reliably reproduce our findings.
- Validated with Rigorous Controls: The accuracy of our data is confirmed through multi-level controls. We used sophisticated counter-selection to ensure aptamer specificity, integrated blank and control channels to calibrate instrument data, and validated our final sensor against a panel of interfering proteins to confirm its specificity.
- A Useful and Adaptable Framework: We offer a complete and versatile measurement workflow. This pipeline—from aptamer selection and affinity characterization to integration into a CRISPR-based sensor—serves as a valuable and reusable framework for future iGEM teams developing novel diagnostics or biosensors.
For our full protocols, data and validation endeavors, please refer to our Measurement page at: https://2025.igem.wiki/keystone/measurement.
