Students of NIS won a silver medal at the international iGEM 2025 competition

The NIS-Kazakhstan team became the only school team representing Kazakhstan at the prestigious international synthetic biology competition iGEM 2025 in Paris — and earned a silver medal.

The NIS-Kazakhstan team included 38 participants from various regions of the country, including students from NIS Karatau and NIS Abai in Shymkent, as well as students from NIS Petropavlovsk, NIS Turkistan, and several other comprehensive schools.

The International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition annually brings together young researchers who use gene technologies and bioengineering to solve global challenges.

This year, over 400 teams from more than 60 countries participated, including university, graduate, and school teams.

The team’s research project focused on cosmetic product safety. To raise awareness of this issue, the NIS-Kazakhstan participants developed a proof of concept — a system based on genetically modified HEK293T cells capable of detecting hydroquinone in cosmetic products.

The next goal of the project is to create a simple, affordable, and portable biosensor that will allow consumers to independently check the safety of cosmetic products.