From October 28 to 31, the Vilnius University Life Sciences Center (VU LSC) student team, Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM 2025, won a gold medal at the international synthetic biology competition iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition) held in Paris.
VU students presented this year’s project, IXPOSE, designed to facilitate the collection of data on tick-borne pathogens, competing against more than 400 teams from over 50 countries. Among their competitors were teams from some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, and the University of Oxford.
“After an intense week full of emotions, we returned to Lithuania with a gold medal, continuing our university team’s tradition of ranking among the best at this competition. After ten months of hard work and the final challenge itself, we’ve grown tremendously as individuals, and we’ll definitely apply this experience in the future,” said Areta Petrauskaitė, leader of the “Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM” team.
Now in its eleventh year, the Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM team has developed an innovative tool to help collect data on tick-borne pathogens — a problem relevant to both Lithuania and worldwide. The student-designed test will enable scientists to monitor not only well-known diseases such as Lyme disease, but also less common and lesser-known pathogens, such as Rickettsia bacteria.
VU student teams have been participating in this prestigious synthetic biology competition since 2015, consistently earning gold medals — and twice taking home the grand prize.
Lithuanians first made their mark in 2017 with the project “SynORI”, when the team created a plasmid regulation system that earned them the grand prize. They won first place again in 2020 with “FlavoFlow”, a rapid detection tool for early disease diagnostics in fish farms.
iGEM is the world’s largest annual international synthetic biology competition aimed at promoting advances in the field. Interdisciplinary university student teams from around the globe work to solve pressing problems in medicine, food production, energy, and other areas.
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| “Vilnius-Lithuania iGEM 2025” presents its project “IXPOSE” in Paris. Photo by the VU LSC student team. |