BME and BMS Teams Won at SynBio Challenges 2026

Three teams from BME and BMS, led by Prof. FU Bing (fourth from the left in the back row) and Prof. WANG Li (second from the right in the back row), excelled at SynBio Challenges 2026, winning three awards.

Two BME teams and a BMS team have been awarded two gold medals and one silver medal in the protein design competition at SynBio Challenges 2026, held at Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology from 21 to 23 August this year.

SynBio Challenges is an international synthetic biology competition established in Shenzhen in 2022. Guided by the principles of “build for knowledge” and “build for use,” it encourages undergraduate students, postgraduate students and young researchers to develop innovative biological solutions for healthcare, agriculture, environmental protection, and industrial biomanufacturing. In 2026, the competition was recognized as an endorsed initiative under the UNESCO-led International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development, reflecting its contribution to responsible scientific innovation and sustainable development.

The competition this year attracted 512 teams and 3,849 participants from nine countries. Its six major tracks covered conventional applications, bacterial competition, protein design, synthetic cells, responsible innovation and industry-defined challenges. Several tracks provided automated, high-throughput experimental validation using Shenzhen’s advanced synthetic biology infrastructure.

The BMS team, led by Prof. WANG Li and Dr. WU Yandi (Postdoctoral Fellow), with undergraduate students, CHEN Siyi, NG Wai Laam, ZHA Ruixuan, and ZHAO Qiu Wen Zoe (Captain), proposed to engineer green fluorescent protein (GFP) variants with both high fluorescence and strong thermal resilience. The designed proteins were evaluated by their fluorescence after heating at 72°C for 10 minutes and subsequent renaturation. This demanding task required simultaneous optimization of protein brightness, folding efficiency, thermostability, and recovery from heat-induced denaturation.

To tackle the challenge, the team developed an AI-assisted computational pipeline integrating protein structure prediction, stability modeling, protein language models, fluorescence prediction, and large-scale experimental datasets. Six GFP sequences were designed using three complementary scaffolds – sfGFP, StayGold, and mBaoJin – to balance performance and design diversity. The optimization strategy focused on stabilizing the fluorescent chromophore, improving protein folding, enhancing thermal stability, and ensuring compatibility with cell-free protein synthesis.

Photo taken during the BMS Team’s presentation

Photo taken during BME Team 2’s presentation

The following two BME teams, led by Prof. FU Bing and Ms. GU Hanfei (PhD Student), won two gold medals in the competition.

BME Team 1	BME Team 2
AAMINA Zainab Bibi AHAMMAD Surid BUDHI Kevin Henlyson (Captain) FRASSEK Bjorn Alastair IMMANUEL Kennard Gilbert (Captain) LEUNG Siu Wai LIM Dimitri LO Hiu Yau PRANATA Felice SAHA AUTHAI Shemonti SANTOSO Jolin Isabel THETHI Jasmeh Kaur TJAHJADI Cleighton Darian ZHANG Yuzhen	LEUNG Siu Wai (Captain) LO Hiu Yau ZHANG Yuzhen

 

To address the challenge, both teams designed promoter sequences that can control the expression of three different fluorescent proteins (red, green, blue) so that the mixture of the signals generates two expected colors, love and peace. The students formed two teams to tackle the problem using different design logic: team 1 decided to take on a more traditional method where they randomized the promoter sequences and input them into commercial software to check the protein expression efficiency, whereas team 2 adopted an AI model and machine learning to speed up the process and applied thermodynamic equations to help them choose the best sequence.