The purpose of the Student Challenge is to allow middle and high school students to think creatively, conduct background research, and develop a proposal for a unique solution that can help address important problems that face the medical field. Through this process, students will be able to think like scientists and learn how to make existing technologies even better.
Access Student Challenge Submissions
Theme
The theme of this scientific student challenge, "Bioinformatics: Acting Alongside AI," invites students to explore how bioinformatics and artificial intelligence can work together to solve real-world problems in biology and medicine. Participants are encouraged to design creative projects that use both data and smart technology to better understand living systems. This could include ideas like using AI to help analyze DNA, find patterns in diseases, or speed up the search for new medicines. By combining bioinformatics with AI, students can imagine exciting new ways to improve health, understand biology, and make scientific discoveries.
We want students to have room to explore their own interests and see how computational and engineering methods can be applied to the topic.
We have several mentors available to assist you. If you want someone to review your project, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and provide your need and your topic specifics and we will match you up with a mentor.
Before the Symposium
Students should brainstorm and think of ideas within the scope of the topic Bioinformatics: Acting Alongside AI. All attendees interested in participating in the Student Challenge will add the title and abstract for their project during the registration process. Attendees will have the opportunity to edit their registration to add their project information if they decide to participate after they have registered to attend. All projects need to be in the registration system by June 30th. All participants in the Student Challenge will receive an additional email with information on where and how to submit their project. All projects must be uploaded by July 7th.
During the Symposium
At the symposium, there will be scheduled time within the program when each participant in the Student Challenge will answer questions about their work with the various attendees at the symposium (family and friends) and will also present their work to the judges. The judges will score and determine the top projects, who will receive an award during the closing ceremonies.
Project Details
Before the symposium all participants in the Student Challenge MUST upload their project. Your submission should be between 3-5 minutes and consist of voice over slides or a video. All Student Challenge submissions will be available for on-demand viewing 48 hours before the symposium.
- Save your presentation as an MP4 file with the first name, last name, and project title.
- Slides should be widescreen16x9 ratio which export best to 1080p videos.
Some helpful tips on planning your recorded talk are available at these links:
Presenting your poster in a lighting style format using the PechaKucha or Ignite talks presentation style or a single slide or PDF is an option for presenters.
Here is a example of a presentation: https://youtu.be/EwzUjzvlVWQ
All projects must be uploaded by Friday, July 7, 2025.
At the Student Challenge, individuals will be assigned a virtual table and be available to answer questions about their project.
Judging Criteria
| I. Research Question (15 pts) | |
|---|---|
| clear and focused purpose | |
| identifies contribution to field of study | |
| testable using scientific methods | |
| II. Design and Methodology (10 pts) | |
| well designed plan and data collection methods | |
| III. Creativity (15 pts) | |
| project demonstrates significant creativity in one or more of the above criteria | |
| IV. Presentation (20 pts) | |
| clear, concise, thoughtful responses to questions | |
| understanding of basic science relevant to project | |
| recognize the potential impact on social and ethical issues | |
| quality of ideas for further research | |
| Total Points Possible: 60 | |
Department of Computer Science
The University of Manchester
Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Joint Head of Node ELIXIR-UK
Scientific co-Director Federated Analytics HDR-UK
https://staff.cs.manchester.ac.uk/~carole/index.html
Program is in BST. Program subject to change without notice.
| Start Time | End Time | Session |
|---|---|---|
| 13:00 | 13:05 | Welcome |
| 13:05 | 14:00 | Keynote - Dr. Carole Goble |
| 14:00 | 15:00 | Explore Student Council Symposium Posters - learn what university-level research projects look like and get the opportunity to talk to current PhD research students |
| 15:00 | 16:00 | Tutorial TBD |
| 16:00 | 16:15 | Snack and stretch break |
| 16:15 | 17:15 | Tutorial TBD |
| 17:15 | 17:30 | Student Challenge Winner Showcase and Closing Remarks |
Youth Bioinformatics Symposium 2025
The International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) will host the Youth Bioinformatics Symposium (YBS) 2025, exploring computational biology as a hybrid event on Sunday, July 20, 2025.
The ISCB Youth Bioinformatics Symposium (YBS) is a one-day event that provides an opportunity for middle and high school students to come together and learn more about the exciting fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. Our hybrid symposium will allow students to engage in-person in Liverpool, in conjunction with ISMB/ECCB 2025, as well as allow students from around the globe to participate virtually to engage with and learn from our online workshops, inform them of the many career areas that bioinformatics is now appearing in, ask questions and also participate in the Student Challenge where they can present their own work.
We hope you join us to make YBS 2025 a success!
Student Organizers
Bethany Cheung
Arnold O. Beckman High School