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The young talents of iGEM Brno took home the main prize in the Overgraduate category at the prestigious iGEM 2025 biotechnology competition in Paris. In addition to the top award, their project—pushing the boundaries of synthetic biology—also earned prizes for Best Agriculture Project, Best Plant Synthetic Biology, Best Presentation Video, and a Gold Medal. Their autonomous cultivation unit for growing the fast-growing plant duckweed was developed in the strojLAB laboratories at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FSI).
Immense joy from the Brno students (photo: iGEM Brno)
“With enormous joy, we want to share some fantastic news with you. We managed to put Czechia and Slovakia on the map of discoveries that push the limits of synthetic biology—we became the first Czechoslovak team in the more than twenty-year history of iGEM to win,” the students wrote on the Donio platform, where they raised over 300,000 CZK in a crowdfunding campaign. The money helped them travel to Paris fully prepared. “Victory came down to details that we were able to fine-tune thanks to your support. This success would not have been possible without you. Thank you for being part of our journey to victory—it was an unforgettable experience,” the team added.
The iGEM Brno team collected many additional awards (photo: iGEM Brno)The winners were selected by a jury of more than 200 members, who were so impressed by the Brno university students that they even beat teams from such prestigious institutions as Oxford and Cambridge. The goal of the iGEM Brno team is to offer farmers an affordable, local protein source that could replace soy. Although soy currently dominates the protein sources used for animal feed, it carries major environmental consequences.
Duckweed is the fastest-growing plant in the world (source: Pravoslav Žilka, iGEM Brno)
iGEM Brno’s proposed alternative is duckweed—a rapidly growing plant that can be cultivated in an autonomous cultivation unit developed in the strojLAB workshop at the BUT Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. The student team operated as an interuniversity, multidisciplinary group, relying especially on the expertise of biologists from Masaryk University and engineers from Brno University of Technology.
You can read an interview (in Czech) with FSI student Pravoslav Žilka, who was part of the team, here.
Pravoslav Žilka (right) with FSI student Andrej Žabka and FIT alumnus Martin Pavelle building the autonomous cultivation unit in strojLAB (source: Pravoslav Žilka, iGEM Brno)
iGEM is a prestigious international student competition focused on synthetic biology. Founded at MIT in 2003, it has since attracted tens of thousands of participants (currently over 80,000 students from more than 65 countries and about 4,500 teams). During the summer, teams create their own biotechnology projects and present them at the world finals in the autumn.
Our heartfelt congratulations to the entire iGEM Brno team!
Responsibility: Bc. Tereza Kučerová