Overview

This year, we intensified efforts toward making synthetic biology education accessible, multilingual, and community-driven—especially for students from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds. Building on the momentum of our virtual Stanford iGEM Bioengineering Research Program (SIBRP)—which selected 200 scholars from a pool of 2,000+ applicants and delivered a four-week sequence of lectures, workshops, and guest talks—we designed our outreach as a two-way exchange focused on clarity, hands-on exposure, and mentorship. The SIBRP curriculum spanned genetic circuits, foundational wet-lab methods, bioethics/biosecurity, and career development, with featured speakers such as Prof. Drew Endy and industry scientists guiding learners from first principles to real-world applications.

Beyond SIBRP, we broadened access through open, scalable communities and experiential programming. We launched a public Discord server that hosts SIBRP materials, now supporting 500+ members, and piloted an AI-powered Discord bot (Groq API) to answer synbio questions and guide learners asynchronously—extending learning beyond scheduled sessions. We also ran hands-on and hybrid experiences: a SWE GetSET workshop at San Francisco State University combining biopigment art with a cell-free CRISPR activity; TurBiohacks, an international biohackathon emphasizing computational biology; and the SB Talk seminar that invites campus-wide dialogue on our project's early directions. Each effort reinforces our goal to make synbio tangible, collaborative, and responsive to community feedback.

We also invested in multilingual, creative, and partner-led pathways to lower barriers. "Phil's Laberia," our interactive learning game, is being expanded with spaced-repetition quizzes and translations (e.g., Chinese, Telugu, Hindi, Swahili, Malay, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, French, Kazakh) to boost retention and reach. In parallel, we mentored the co-founders of SynBio Youth—two SIBRP alumni from Ethiopia and Egypt—through biweekly advisory calls, a virtual wet-lab workshop using Laberia assets, and speaker sourcing for SynBio Youth Talks. Together, we outlined a forward program that includes a hybrid summer course, monthly webinars, mentorship networks, community science projects, and open-access, multilingual learning resources—positioning a new nonprofit to carry this accessibility mission into 2026 and beyond.

Finally, we continued to connect learners with research spaces and industry through talks (e.g., Lowell High School), lab tours (BEAM HS at the Uytengsu Teaching Lab), and translational collaborations (e.g., exploring an academic-to-educational RADAR kit with RADAR Tx). These touchpoints—paired with mentorship and open resources—create a pipeline where curiosity becomes capability, and where youth everywhere can join, shape, and advance synthetic biology.

Stanford iGEM Bioengineering Research Program (July 7 - Aug 1, 2025)

Structure & Vision

The Stanford iGEM Bioengineering Research Program (SIBRP) is a four-week initiative designed for high school students with limited prior exposure to synthetic biology and bioengineering. Grounded in a mission to uplift first-generation and low-income students globally, the program offers direct mentorship from Stanford students, opportunities to engage with leading researchers and faculty, and the chance to develop a research proposal with the potential for publication.

This year, we welcomed our largest applicant pool yet, with over 2,000 students applying and 200 ultimately selected in alignment with the teaching team's capacity. The success of the program was made possible by our dedicated teaching assistants—many of whom are SIBRP alumni—alongside our education co-directors. Our program reached applicants from 910 different institutions across 64 countries, building a truly global community of aspiring synthetic biologists.

Program Curriculum

The week-by-week instruction of the program:

Cultural Exchange

Beyond providing a program for students to learn the basics of synthetic biology, we envisioned SIBRP as an experience that would broaden worldviews and offer students the opportunity to engage with their peers from around the world. During the final week of the program, students prepared presentations highlighting their favorite traditions and cultural practices. The response was overwhelming—the vast majority of SIBRP students participated, and several requested additional sessions to continue culture-centric conversations.

Countries represented: India, Turkey, Swahili Coast, Peru, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Indonesia, Egypt, China, and many more.

Speaker Series

Participants also attended a series of engaging talks by experts in the field of synthetic biology. These sessions covered a wide range of topics, from precision medicine start-ups to cutting-edge advancements in optogenetics, offering a comprehensive introduction to the field of bioengineering. The talks were also open to the public to increase accessibility to bioengineering topics.

List of Speakers:

Outstanding Research Projects

We are incredibly proud of the research proposals developed by our scholars. The following proposals were selected as the best:

Program Feedback & Impact

Our participants provided overwhelmingly positive feedback across all program components:

Would you recommend SIBRP to others? The overwhelming majority of participants said they would recommend the program to others interested in bioengineering and synthetic biology research.

Stanford iGEM Discord Community Server

While we were initially organizing our annual SIBRP 2025 program, we consulted with one of our mentors Dr. Phillip Kyriakakis on how we could make SIBRP more accessible to reach out to as many high school students as possible across the world and across different socioeconomic backgrounds. We decided that on top of hosting our virtual SIBRP 2025 that takes in 200 high school students for an interactive synchronous virtual experience with the Stanford iGEM team to learn and apply concepts in synthetic biology, we also realized that to truly make a program accessible we would have to make it open-access and also self-sustaining even beyond Stanford iGEM 2025. Therefore, we came up with the idea to create a public Discord server that allowed anyone from anywhere in the world to join the server and learn synthetic biology concepts. We simply uploaded all the content from SIBRP 2025 onto the server and built a Discord server community of more than 500 members! On top of that, we also developed a chatbot to assist members of the community with any question whenever we're away.

Stanford iGEM Discord Bot

The Stanford iGEM Discord Bot is an automation tool we developed with Python, designed to provide personalized answers to questions about synthetic biology. By leveraging a large language model (LLM) through the Groq API, the bot offers accessible explanations of complex concepts, guidance on research practices, and insights into the work of the Stanford iGEM team and the iGEM competition as a whole. Specifically, this bot is designed to assist with teaching those with inaccessibility to lab tools synthetic biology. By integrating with course slideshows, recorded lectures, and assignments from the Stanford iGEM Bioengineering Research Program (SIBRP), the bot provides a structured way for learners to engage with synthetic biology concepts outside of the lab.

This bot enhances communication within the Stanford iGEM community by responding to synthetic biology questions directly in dedicated channels, without the assistance of TAs or staff, ensuring that members can engage with synthetic biology knowledge instantly. Whether clarifying genetic engineering principles, offering historical context about the iGEM competition, or pointing to valuable resources, the bot serves as both an educational assistant and a community support system.

Though in its beta stage, the Stanford iGEM Discord Bot demonstrates the power of integrating AI into research spaces for educational purposes. With more advanced LLM reasoning, domain-specific datasets, and strategically engineered prompts, the bot has the potential to grow into a library for synthetic biology.

import discord
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os
import time

from flask import Flask
from groq import Groq

from threading import Thread

load_dotenv()

groq_api_key = os.getenv('GROQ_API_KEY')
groq_client = Groq(
    api_key=groq_api_key
)

def query_llm(message):
    completion = groq_client.chat.completions.create(
        model="llama-3.1-8b-instant",
        messages=[
            {
                "role": "system",
                "content": "You are a discord bot for Stanford iGEM that responds to all Synthetic Biology questions. "
                           "Stanford iGEM is a student-run, faculty-directed research organization at Stanford University. "
                           "The objective of our interdisciplinary student group is to design and build novel engineered "
                           "biological systems using standardized DNA-based parts to submit to the iGEM competition, "
                           "held in Paris, France as of 2022. Stanford iGEM has excelled since 2009, earning 10 gold, "
                           "4 silver, and 1 bronze medals. Notable achievements include winning the Best New Application "
                           "award in 2011, participating in World Championships like Stanford x Brown in 2012 and 2013, "
                           "and collaborative successes like the iGEMers prize in 2019 with Brown and Princeton. Nominated "
                           "for the best education and environmental project in 2023, Stanford iGEM continues to lead in "
                           "synthetic biology. Do not directly @ or mention the user."
            },
            {
                "role": "user",
                "content": message
            }
        ],
        temperature=1,
        max_completion_tokens=1024,
        top_p=1,
        stream=False,
        stop=None
    )

    return completion.choices[0].message.content

def split_messages(message, limit=2000):
    chunks = []
    while len(message) > limit:
        split_index = message.rfind("\n", 0, limit)
        if split_index == -1:
            split_index = limit
        chunks.append(message[:split_index])
        message = message[split_index:].lstrip()
    chunks.append(message)
    return chunks

class Client(discord.Client):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self.user_cooldowns = {}

    async def on_ready(self):
        print(f'Logged on as {self.user}!')

    async def on_message(self, message):
        if message.author == self.user:
            return

        if (
            message.author != self.user
            and self.user in message.mentions
            and message.channel.name in ["igem-bot", "moderation"]
        ):
            now = time.time()
            cooldown_period = 10
            last_used = self.user_cooldowns.get(message.author.id, 0)

            if now - last_used < cooldown_period:
                remaining = int(cooldown_period - (now - last_used))
                await message.reply(f"⏳ Slow down! Try again in {remaining}s.", mention_author=False)
                return

            self.user_cooldowns[message.author.id] = now

            response = query_llm(message=message.content)
            for chunk in split_messages(response):
                await message.reply(chunk)

        if (
            message.channel.category
            and message.channel.category.name in ["info", "resources"]
        ):
            content = message.content
            await message.delete()
            await message.channel.send(content)

intents = discord.Intents.default()
intents.message_content = True

client = Client(intents=intents)

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def home():
    return "Discord bot ok"

def run_web():
    port = int(os.environ.get("PORT", 8080))  # use Render's PORT
    app.run(host="0.0.0.0", port=port)

def keep_alive():
    t = Thread(target=run_web)
    t.daemon = True
    t.start()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    keep_alive()
    token = os.getenv("DISCORD_TOKEN")
    client.run(token)

Open Source Repository: This complete codebase is available for students to learn from, modify, and deploy their own educational bots. The repository includes setup instructions, deployment guides, and educational documentation.

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/andrewlau624/igem-discord-bot

TurBiohacks

From September 5-7, we hosted an international biohackathon called TurBiohacks. It spotlighted the computational components of biological research, inspiring our participants–primarily high school students and undergraduate freshmen–to pursue dry lab endeavors. Our students explored the origin of life by simulating RNA assembly in extraterrestrial conditions, developed image recognition software for skin diseases, and much more.

We also featured a number of prominent researchers during our lecture series, which included Dr. Phillip Kyriakakis–who let students remotely operate a fermentation robot in his lab–Dr. Alon Loeffer–who taught students the gist of teaching neurons to run code–and a debrief on a fermentation lab at National Tsing Hua University.

Cortical Labs Lecture

Teaching neurons to run code

Dr. Phillip Kyriakakis

Remote fermentation robot demonstration

This hackathon was an exciting collaboration between iGEM teams at Stanford, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, and the National University of Singapore (NUS). Members from all teams were involved in judging, IIT Madras and NUS handled the website design, and Stanford and NTHU handled event logistics,outreach and the lecture series.

After TurBiohacks, we asked about what participants' biggest takeaways were from the event:

We also asked participants to share the most memorable parts of TurBiohacks with us:

Winning Projects Showcase

We're proud to highlight the outstanding projects that emerged from TurBiohacks, demonstrating the incredible learning outcomes and innovative thinking of our participants.

Astrobiogenesis Simulator: Our Genetic Code's Origin

Study how life evolved on Earth under diverse conditions to model how DNA and RNA might adapt and survive on other planets, revealing possibilities for extraterrestrial life.

Best Astrobiology Award

Educational Impact: This project demonstrates how students can apply computational biology to explore fundamental questions about life's origins, combining evolutionary biology with astrobiology to create innovative research tools.

Oncophoros

Introducing a smart tool that accurately distinguishes HBV vs Non-Viral HCC and helps design genetic circuits, enabling smarter cancer detection and therapy.

Best Oncology Project Best Technical Implementation

Educational Impact: This project showcases how students can apply synthetic biology principles to real-world medical challenges, combining computational analysis with genetic circuit design to create practical diagnostic tools.

Design mCherry–Nanobody Fusion

Engineering mCherry–nanobody fusion proteins that specifically target HER2+ cancer cells and provide a bright red fluorescent readout for imaging and flow cytometry.

Best Drug Discovery Project

Educational Impact: This project demonstrates how students can combine protein engineering with cancer biology to create practical diagnostic tools, showcasing the intersection of synthetic biology and medical applications.

NutriScope

NutriScope: A simple tool to predict hidden hunger risk and raise awareness about micronutrient gaps.

Best Food & Nutrition Project

Educational Impact: This project shows how students can apply computational tools to address global health challenges, combining data science with nutrition to create accessible solutions for hidden hunger awareness.

VioFlux

VioFlux: interactive epigenetic tuning for biosynthetic pathways: toggle CRISPRa/i or methylation per gene and get instant, bottleneck-aware flux & yield plus sensitivities that suggest the next edit.

Best Biomanufacturing Project Best Overall Project

Educational Impact: This project exemplifies the pinnacle of computational biology education, combining systems biology, synthetic biology, and bioinformatics to create an advanced tool for metabolic engineering that demonstrates mastery of complex interdisciplinary concepts.

Hemo_Scan

AI-powered nail image analysis for quick, non-invasive anemia screening.

Most Innovative Solution

Educational Impact: This project demonstrates how students can apply machine learning to healthcare challenges, creating accessible diagnostic tools that combine computer vision with medical knowledge to address global health disparities.

Hidden Hunger Risk Predictor

AI-powered hidden hunger prediction achieving 99.9% F1 score, identifying multi-micronutrient deficiencies with WHO/FAO-compliant risk assessment for 2+ billion at-risk individuals globally.

Best Impact Potential

Educational Impact: This project showcases how students can create AI solutions with real-world global impact, combining machine learning expertise with public health knowledge to address one of the world's most pressing nutritional challenges affecting billions of people.

SynBio Youth

SynBio Youth aims to increase global accessibility to synthetic biology and bioengineering principles year-round. Eyosyas and Sama, the two co-founders of SynBio Youth, attribute their inspiration to begin their initiative to their participation in the Stanford iGEM Bioengineering Research Program (SIBRP) and their blooming interest in scaling the reach of the summer program into an international nonprofit organization. The core tenets of SynBio Youth are therefore global accessibility, equity, and growth — tenets that align with the Stanford iGEM's fundamental mission to empower youth and extend the reach of synthetic biology.

After assisting with the initial framing of the organization, Noor, Melwin, and Fatima were designated as mentors, scheduling regular calls to advise on the organization's next steps. The organization currently spans North Africa and continues to expand across the Global South, where educational resources are particularly limited.

With aims of having the non-profit fully established by the Summer of 2026, our team has agreed to the following terms in helping the international co-founders pursue their initiatives inspired by our virtually held SIBRP program. We aim for this to be not only a catalyst for their non-profit, but a testament to the accessibility of science from anywhere around the globe.

Our Support Initiatives

Biweekly Advisory Calls

We hold regular virtual check-ins with co-presidents and founders from Ethiopia and Egypt to provide mentorship, project planning support, and guidance. These sessions create space for questions, feedback, and collaboration, ensuring organizers feel supported throughout their non-profit establishment and growth journey.

Virtual Wet Lab Workshop

Since this non-profit was created by two students inspired by our virtually held research workshop (SIBRP), we have agreed to provide the Laberia source code and guidance to run a virtual hands-on experience. These will simulate key wet lab techniques such as genetic circuits, molecular biology workflows, and biosensor design which will help make synthetic biology training accessible to students regardless of location and resources.

SynBio Youth Talks

We are taking the initiative of helping source speakers from our team and potentially Stanford faculty, similar to our SIBRP lecture series, to share their expertise. Modeled after the SIBRP program, these talks will cover topics like CRISPR, microbiomes, bioinformatics, and bioethics, followed by a Q&A session.

SynBio Youth Magazine

We are contributing to the SynBio Youth Magazine, an international publication designed to inspire and inform the public of biomedical innovations happening across the globe. Our team will be sharing an article featuring our 2025 project, helping kick off the magazine with accessible science communication and project highlights.

BioArt + Innovation Exhibit

We support creative projects including fields of biology, art, and design. By sharing protocols and resources from our past experiences, we are helping the students develop BioArt installations and innovation showcases that engage the full communities and spark curiosity about synthetic biology in under-resourced areas.

SynBio Youth Discord Community

We are building a global online community for students to connect, collaborate, and learn together. Our interns will take part in assisting with moderation and engagement, ensuring the space is welcoming and supportive for all students. The Discord will include channels for mentorship, project collaboration, and casual discussion, making it a platform for ongoing engagement.

Local Partnerships

We are serving as liaisons for the non-profit founders to the resources and mentors at Stanford. We have offered support in forming collaborative partnerships with mentors or groups that can provide support in lacking areas. Regardless of location or resource, these students have the ability to pursue all initiatives with aims of making science more accessible.

Future Direction

Per our discussion with the co-founders of SynBio Youth, we were able to draft out several future initiatives that SynBio Youth will take charge of. With these initiatives, we hope that SynBio Youth can help deepen the interest of students in synthetic biology across the world!

Summer Synthetic Biology Program

• 4–6 week hybrid workshop (online + optional in-person)
• Curriculum: basics of biology, genetic circuits, bioethics, lab simulations
• Student projects with final presentations and mini-research papers

Ongoing Workshops & Webinars

• Monthly sessions on CRISPR, biosensors, bioinformatics, etc.
• Guest speakers (professors, iGEM alumni, industry experts)
• Mentorship and Q&A groups

Multilingual Educational Materials

• Translate guides/textbooks into Amharic, Arabic, Spanish, English, etc.
• Produce videos, infographics, and free online resources
• Tiered levels: Level 1 (Introductory) and Level 2 (Intermediate)

Mentorship Program

• Pair students with university/industry mentors
• Regular check-ins, project guidance, and career/college advice

Community Science Projects

• Citizen science and local challenges (bioremediation, urban farming, etc.)
• Team-based, real-world impact projects

Resources Development

• Low-cost starter kits (DIY bacterial culture, paper manuals)
• Online learning platform with videos, forums, project showcases
• Open-access library of books, research papers, and summaries

Community Building & Outreach

• Social media campaigns to share stories and highlights
• Partnerships with schools, universities, nonprofits, companies
• Local bio clubs to sustain learning and engagement

Events & Engagement

• Annual symposium or science fair to showcase student work
• Global guest speaker series with monthly Q&A
• Hackathons/design challenges for innovation and problem-solving

Fundraising & Sustainability

• Grants for STEM education and international development
• Crowdfunding campaigns with impact stories
• Sponsorships from biotech companies and local businesses
• Volunteer recruitment for teaching, translation, and tech support

Phil's Laberia

Originally developed by the 2023 Stanford iGEM team, Phil's Laberia is an interactive game that teaches bioengineering concepts through a virtual gameplay setting, making complex topics accessible and engaging. We've been implementing Phil's Laberia in our SIBRP programs as well as our Stanford iGEM Discord Community Server.

Building off last year's team's initiative to translate the game into different languages to improve access to bioengineering education, we consulted with our mentors Dr. Phillip Kyriakakis and Dr. Alex Engel to identify further avenues of improvement for Phil's Laberia. After our discussion, we identified the game's lack of spaced repetition in allowing users to reinforce molecular biology concepts as an opportunity for further improvement. We wanted to weave quiz-style questions throughout the storyline of the game to engage users to reinforce their learning. This is also in line with the feedback we received from SIBRP participants on using Phil's Laberia. Many hoped for more sustained interaction within the game.

We thus had volunteers develop a series of questions throughout each section of the game along with translating the questions into a diverse array of languages to improve accessibility to different communities. This included languages such as Chinese, Telugu, Hindi, Swahili, Malay, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, French, Kazakh, and many more. This initiative not only allowed students and learners worldwide to engage more with the content and test themselves on content mastery, but also allowed them to overcome language barriers, democratizing access to science education and improving learning retention.

We are currently in the process of integrating these quiz questions into the game along with developing new characters and dialogue, which will further enhance its learning retention and accessibility to a global audience. Overall, we received 21 questions spanning 8 levels in 15 different languages from volunteers.

Phil's Laberia Quiz Questions Compilation

Our volunteers created comprehensive quiz questions spanning multiple levels and languages. View the complete table here.

One of our SIBRP participants even volunteered to submit questions for 3 entire levels, including 53 questions in English and Hindi:

Stanford iGEM Virtual Internship Program (SIVIP)

SIVIP scales Stanford iGEM's traditional internship program to students worldwide. Our six interns from Brazil, Malaysia, Ghana, and the United States worked on diverse projects contributing to research, outreach, and documentation.

Intern Highlights:

• Lucas:
• Andrew: Andrew contributed to the team’s technical infrastructure through his work on automation and web development. He developed and deployed a Discord bot using Python and the Groq API to support learner interactions, implementing features like rate limiting, message splitting, and cloud deployment via Render to ensure reliability. Andrew also helped establish the foundation of the team’s competition wiki, building a responsive navigation system and visual framework that emphasized accessibility and ease of collaboration. Beyond his individual projects, he provided technical guidance to teammates, assisting with debugging, layout design, and Git workflows to strengthen the team’s overall development capacity.

Stanford Engineering Centennial Celebration and Showcase

Stanford School of Engineering celebrated its 100th anniversary. Since Stanford iGEM has been supported by the Department of Bioengineering, we were invited to take part in the festivities and set up a booth where more than 2,000 members of the public visited the Robert Rosenkranz Science and Engineering Quad.

Our Three-Act Narrative

Cognizant of not marketing iGEM and synthetic biology as a great all-in-one world-saver, we sought to establish genuine dialogue with the public about our efforts. Consulting with our PI, Prof. Drew Endy, gave us the revelation that we needed to communicate to the audience by painting a narrative of inspiration, confidence, and self-empowerment that invites them to imagine for themselves what they can do with synthetic biology. Thus, we developed 3 acts where the props of our booth were centered around:

Act 1: Inspiring the Audience

When visitors first approached our booth, we first asked them if they were familiar with the concept of synthetic biology. Building off of that, we then introduced them to iGEM and the Stanford iGEM team, inviting them to watch a short video of iGEM's villages to get a broad overview of what problems synthetic biology can address.

Act 2: Building Confidence

As the visitors began to know more about synthetic biology, many of them had no idea where to start or expressed doubts about being able to use it themselves to do good for society. Exactly as we anticipated, they were afraid of the complexity of synthetic biology and we also realized that this may have been one of the reasons iGEM didn't want teams to "sell" iGEM as something that can save the world as it makes it become a big picture problem that dissociates the general public from synthetic biology instead of empowering them to take synthetic biology into their own hands.

To address this, we developed a persuasive narrative that gave them the confidence to use synthetic biology themselves by describing some of the past projects that we have done, showing them our ideation from scratch, our design-build-test-learn cycle, and shared how most of us had no exposure to synthetic biology before we went to college.

We also showed them a photo wall consisting of all the Stanford iGEM alumni and how they've went from first knowing synthetic biology to having and even starting successful careers in synthetic biology, sending the message that anyone can be an agent of change and are capable of taking synthetic biology into their own hands to do something good.

We connected with the visitors by understanding and empathizing with their doubts and delivered the message that synthetic biology is more accessible than most people think by guiding them through a hands-on activity where they crafted personal art by pipetting (adapted from a protocol by our mentor Dr. Engel) onto empty plates. Many of them felt a sense of achievement and were astonished at how synthetic biology can even be applied in artistic and creative ways. They now felt confident that they could take charge and use synthetic biology.

Act 3: Promoting Self-Empowerment

To wrap up our engagement with the visitors, we really wanted to drill the concept of "anyone can do synthetic biology" into their minds before they left and had a message board and idea jar that invited the visitors to share with us their thoughts on the future of synthetic biology. Our message board included prompts such as "What's next?" and "What's one thing you dream of building now with synthetic biology?" and the visitors were free to write their thoughts on our message board or drop it into an idea jar.

Overall, the event was a success and it achieved our goals of genuinely connecting with the public about synthetic biology, clearing misconceptions, and empowering them to harness the potential of synthetic biology. We also reached out to almost 180 of our past team members and mentors and invited them to join us at our event, handing out small tokens of appreciation and reconnecting with them about their journey and experiences in iGEM and synthetic biology thereafter, giving us a lot of insight into how the iGEM community has grown over the past.

iGEM Khan Lab School x Qi Lab Collab

Following our successful event at SF State University for SWE GetSet utilizing the Qi Lab's frugal CRISPR kits, we were looped in for a sharing session by Dr. Alex Choi, a postdoc under the Qi Lab, with the Khan Lab Schools iGEM team, a high school iGEM team.

On July 16, 2025, Stanford iGEM, represented by Rhea and Melwin, were joined by members of the Qi Lab and Khan Lab Schools iGEM team for a sharing session encompassing the following topics:

• Tour around the Uytengsu Teaching Lab, our iGEM team's lab space
• Each team's iGEM projects
• How each team operates at the high school / college level
• Sharing our insights and experiences in synthetic biology with high school students
• Opportunities for a potential collaboration to make the CRISPR kit more accessible in Khan Lab Schools

Overall we had a fruitful exchange and discussed plans for a future education collaboration in the fall to make CRISPR kits more accessible in Khan Lab Schools and got connected with Mr. Baxter Smith, Innovation Hub Director at Khan Lab Schools for further discussion of this project.

GetSet SWE Overview

SWE is one of the largest organizations supporting women in engineering and technology, and a leading advocate and catalyst for transformative change worldwide. Under the Santa Clara Valley Section of SWE, Stanford iGEM hosted a Synthetic Biology Workshop with the Get Science, Engineering, and Technology (GetSET) Program. GetSET is an award-winning outreach program that has been running for over 30 years. Participants interested in STEM connected with over 100 peers, industry professionals, and volunteers experienced in engineering fields. Our team planned, organized, and led a one-day workshop at San Francisco State University, where we introduced synthetic biology concepts as well as hands-on biopigment art and CRISPR activities.

Our workshop took place at San Francisco State University, where 19 GetSET participants engaged in introductory bioengineering skills. Students were first introduced to fundamental concepts in molecular biology such as nucleic acid structure, transformation, Gibson Assembly, PCR, miniprep, DNA purification, and selection markers. Students then developed wet lab skills through a hands-on Bio-Art activity, where they crafted personal art by pipetting chromoproteins extracted from bacteria onto empty plates. Furthermore, with the support of frugal, educational CRISPR kits developed by the Qi Lab at Stanford, we were able to let the students learn about the concept of CRISPR and apply a cell free dCas9 system to repress the expression of tyrosinase in the production of the melanin pigment.

The SWE GetSET Program Workshop inspired and empowered the next generation of scientists and engineers. Through engaging discussions, hands-on activities, and exposure to cutting-edge research environments, we introduced students to pioneering research and encouraged their future contribution in the fields of science, engineering, and technology.

BEAM High School Tour

On July 28th, we were fortunate to provide a tour of the lab space used by the Stanford iGEM team, the Uytengsu Teaching Lab (UTL), to ~30 first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented minority students through the BEAM Circular program – a program aimed at exposing students to educational pathways and careers related to biotech, sustainability, and STEM. Given the shared experience of transitioning to college as a first-generation, low-income, and/or underrepresented minority student among several iGEM team members and students participating in the tour, our team was able to provide a panel discussion to the students about their collective experiences following the tour.

Lowell High School Talk

On the 15th of September 2025, Stanford iGEM, represented by Melwin and Noor, delivered a virtual talk on our project this year to almost 90 high school students across all grades from Lowell High School, San Francisco. We were fortunate to receive an invite from one of our former SIBRP participants who really enjoyed her time in SIBRP and wished to share our ideas with her peers under the Lowell Science Research Program.

When brainstorming within the team to decide on our goals for this talk, we wanted it to be threefold:

1. Raising awareness about Hepatitis B Virus induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma
2. Highlighting the intriguing scientific concept of RNA sensing-editing ADAR complexes (RADAR)
3. Sharing how we went about ideating and designing a synthetic biology project from scratch to empower high school students to do the same

We shared our project to the students, beginning with explaining some of the problems in reading disease states between two linked diseases such as Hepatitis B induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC). We then gave them a quick crash course on the foundations of our sensor-actuator therapy system—RADAR developed by the Gao Lab at Stanford. Once the students had a basic understanding of how RNA sensing and RNA editing by ADAR protein complexes worked, we dove into the specifics of our project such as identifying novel RNA trigger sequences that work well in detecting HBV-HCC, constructing and validating a novel AND gate that combines non-singularly-specific biomarkers to produce a highly specific therapeutic response, and lastly our computational and output work. We then had an open Q&A session with the students and answered any questions they had.

Overall, the participants enjoyed it a lot and thanked us for our time. We also learned that many of the students stayed back after school ended to join our talk, and were really excited to learn more about synthetic biology with us. We would like to thank Ms. Alena Killpack, teacher at Lowell High School for liaising and coordinating logistics with us.

Safety Statement

While accessibility lies at the heart of our education initiative, the safety and well-being of participating youth form its foundation. To uphold these standards, the Stanford iGEM team worked closely with Stanford's Office of Student Engagement (OSE) and the Protection of Minors Management system (ePOM) to register our program and ensure full compliance with university protocols.

All education coordinators completed staff training, passed background checks, and obtained participant waivers prior to engagement. The process began with OSE's approval of our organization's mission and constitution, followed by a consultation with an OSE advisor to review our educational goals and program structure. We then registered through CardinalEngage—Stanford's central platform for student organization management—and ensured every coordinator completed the Minors Online Training and Mandated Reporter Acknowledgement.

Through ePOM registration, we submitted detailed information on our program's logistics, including the number and age of participants, activity type, and supervision structure. This process certified our educators in accordance with Stanford's Protection of Minors policy and verified the completion of all required safety measures.

Each staff member underwent background checks and live scans, which were validated through ePOM. Additionally, all youth participants submitted signed liability waivers, reviewed by both the Protection of Minors Management system and parents or guardians for further oversight.

In hands-on sessions, including our SWE-GetSET workshop, we maintained strict adherence to biohazard safety—ensuring students wore gloves and all lab materials were disposed of properly. The same standards were extended to our internship program, where interns completed the full suite of safety trainings, background checks, and waivers prior to participation.