Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, William and Mary’s iGEM research team won a gold medal at the Grand Jamboree in Paris for its novel research in the field of synthetic biology. International Genetically Engineered Machine Jamboree, the largest synthetic biology competition in the world, is the central cornerstone of a growing new field in biology.
The William and Mary team included Rebecca Zheleznyak ’26, Olabisi Bashorun ’27, Xinyu Hu ’26, Madeline Eibner-Gebhardt ’28, Vandana Kalithkar ’26 and Sean Emmett ’27.
The six-person team, advised by Chancellor Professor of Applied Science Dr. Margaret Saha, competed in the foundational advance category, with their project focusing on the potential altruistic uses for synthetic biology in aquatic environments.
Competing against teams of eight to 50 people from universities such as the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College London and Fudan University, the College’s team firmly held its own.
Project lead Zheleznyak emphasized her team’s hard work.
“I am most proud of how much we did, how much data we collected, how fast our project was, because our team was the smallest it’s ever been,” she said. “I think we were the smallest team in the competition, and the judges were really impressed.”
The 2025 Project was one fundamentally inspired by the local community. Project Aquarius focused on potential synthetic solutions to aquatic problems, including one extremely prevalent across Virginia: algal blooms.
Eibner-Gebhardt explained the algae problem she has seen in Virginia.
“We have problems with algalms in Matoaka and the other lakes in the Virginia area,” she said. “Water quality issues in Richmond and in the surrounding community as well. So we thought this would be applicable to our community.”
In their study of the applications of synthetic biology in local environments, the team consulted experts from the local and international community, in addition to taking water samples from local sources like Lake Matoaka. These experts ranged from Vice President Keri Green and Committee Member Mary Colligan of the Smith Mountain Lake Association to a local ship owner from the Triangle area. Further, the team consulted international experts on aquatic microbial biology research, including Kenneth and laire Mossman, professor of microbiology Steven Wilhelm and Senior Lecturer of microbiology Gary LeCleir from the University of Tennessee Knoxville.
While the project was inspired by local problems, the applications of the William and Mary Jamboree project have the potential to be groundbreaking in a variety of environments. The research can be applied to lakes experiencing invasive algal blooms, as well as preventing metal corrosion.
Eibner-Gebhardt further expanded on the algae research the team has done during the project and what they have learned.
“These harmful algal blooms are really detrimental,” she said. “You can get this massive proliferation of nutrient runoff into a lake environment, for example, you can get this massive proliferation of certain microbial species. And sometimes those are bacteria or cyanobacteria. Certain species of cyanobacteria, for example microcystis of originoso, which I worked with, can produce toxins that kill wildlife. And they also deplete the water of oxygen in sunlight, and that can be a major cause of biodiversity loss.”
The team also experimented with and looked at a wide variety of altruistic applications within the emerging field of synthetic biology.
Eibner-Gebhardt highlighted the steps that her team used to perform the research, citing the process that took place within their algae testing.
“For example, we were looking at corrosion, and we saw that there are a couple of papers that are saying that making biofilms grow on steel will prevent corrosion,” she said. “And we saw that phage, or other bacteria, can prevent algal bloom, so we wanted to test that. And we saw that phage can also treat bacterial pipes, so we wanted to look at that. We were looking at a broad range of synthetic bio solutions to issues in aquatic environments.”
She explained how this research can be translated into a tool for groups outside of the College.
“The outcome of our project is how to enhance engineered and designed systems in order to make them more functional in real-world environments,” she said.
And as a part of the competition, the team also addressed the ethical concerns and challenges associated with synthetic solutions.
Hu shared part of the team’s ethical statement, voicing concerns about extending their research into nature.
“We cannot apply them in real environments yet, but there have been past iGEM products that people wanted,” she said. “But then we figured out, based on our experiments, that what [past iGEM products] they actually made will never work. For instance, there are lab strains that are the screens of bacteria that scientists edited. We figured out that a lot of these solutions are suitable in a lab, but not in nature. A lot of people are using those previous ideas, and they’re past products.”
More educational materials on iGEM and their research can be found on their website. The team emphasizes that even though the competition is over, the research is only just beginning.
Eibner-Gebhardt reflected on the team’s post-season ambitions.
“iGEM doesn’t end after the season is over, and after that, the competition and awards ceremony,” she said. “You can continue with your project and really turn it into something that can be applicable to the fields.”
Zheleznyak is planning to continue her case study on harmful algal blooms in the future as well.
Bashorun encourages others interested on campus to get involved with iGEM as a young researcher.
“It’s really a good opportunity for people who haven’t had experience, or haven’t been in a lab previously,” she said.
