REGISTER NOW FOR OUR 2025 PROTEIN ENGINEERING TOURNAMENT

2025 PETase Tournament

A protein engineering competition employing high-throughput experimentation to benchmark model performance.

REGISTER FOR THE 2025 PROTEIN ENGINEERING TOURNAMENT

A transparent platform for fostering collaboration, evaluating progress, and establishing benchmarks.

💰 $30,000 in Cash Prizes 🧬 Free DNA Synthesis + Wet Lab Testing 📣 Publish Your Results

The Protein Engineering Tournament is a global benchmarking initiative hosted by The Align Foundation. This community-driven challenge empowers researchers to evaluate and improve predictive and generative models in protein engineering. Like CASP for protein structure prediction, the Tournament is designed to foster collaboration, transparency, and rapid progress in AI-powered protein design.

In 2025, your mission is to create an improved PETase, an enzyme that degrades plastic. Winning designs will help tackle the global microplastic crisis.

Join a community of scientists, students, and startups. Compete for funding, recognition, and publication in a special issue on AI-driven protein design.

Register Now

2025 Target

This year’s Tournament centers on polyethylene terephthalate hydrolase (PETase), an enzyme with real-world impact in microplastic degradation and the circular plastic economy.

Register Now

HOW IT WORKS

The 2025 Tournament Includes Two Consecutive Phases:

Top performers from the Predictive Phase will earn automatic entry to the Generative Phase. Other teams may apply directly to participate in the Generative Phase.

Predictive Phase

Nov. 3, 2025 – dec. 23 2025

Predict properties (activity, expression, stability) of PETase variants.

Two Tracks

  1. Zero-Shot (no training data) 🏆Prize: $2,500
  2. Supervised (training data on natural sequences + mutants) 🏆Prize: $5,000

*Top teams advance to Generative phase

Generative Phase

jan. 5, 2026 – April 10, 2026

Design novel PETase sequences with enhanced activity, while maintaining thermostability and expression.

  • Designs are experimentally synthesized and tested.
  • Two iterative design rounds with feedback between the rounds
  • 🏆Prize: $15,000

Key Dates

2025

October 17

Registration Deadline

November 3

Predictive Phase (Zero-Shot) Begins

December 1

Predictive Phase (Supervised) Begins

December 29

Top Teams Invited to Generative Phase

2026

January 5

Generative Phase Round 1 Begins

March 16

Generative Phase Round 2 Begins

June 1

Winners Announced

November 15

Final Results Published

Why join?

  • $30,000 in cash prizes

  • DNA synthesis and experimental testing of your designs

  • Leader-board recognition

  • Co-authorship in a special issue

  • Conference presentation opportunities

  • Impact: Help solve plastic waste with engineered proteins

 

Evaluation Criteria

  • Predictive Phase: Strength of correlation of property predictions submitted by the teams to experimentally measured properties
  • Generative Phase: Fold improvement in experimentally measured activity of protein sequences designed by teams over the activity of an industry benchmark protein sequence (while maintaining threshold levels of thermostability, and expression)

Program Manager

Bijoy Desai
LinkedIn

Bijoy is a biochemist turned synthetic biologist with a passion for advancing innovative ideas. His work spans industry and academia, from applying generative AI and NGS to develop vaccines, therapies, and diagnostics, to using genome engineering and single-molecule biophysics to study protein synthesis. As Technical Project Manager at the Align Foundation, he is leading the development and growth of Protein Engineering Tournaments as a model for collaborative benchmarking in protein design.

Planning Committee

Chase Armer
Columbia University
LinkedIn
David Estell
International Flavors and Fragrances
LinkedIn
David Ross
Living Measurement Systems Foundry - National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
LinkedIn
Aviv Spinner
LinkedIn
Gina El Nesr
Stanford University
LinkedIn
Tamuka (Muk) Chidyausiku
Pledge Therapeutics
LinkedIn
Neil Thomas
Evolutionary Scale
LinkedIn
Peter Kelly
Joint BioEnergy Institute - Zymergen - Ginkgo
LinkedIn
Steffanie Paul
Metaphore Biotechnologies
LinkedIn

Get Involved with the Tournament

Register to Join the Tournament Join the Planning Committee

Sponsorship Opportunities

Align is actively seeking sponsors to expand experimental data generation capacity, provide resources to teams to make the tournament more equitable, and provide better award incentives for the winning teams.

Sponsors will be acknowledged on:

  • The Protein Engineering Tournament 2025 website and communications

  • Conference presentations and retrospective publications

  • Leaderboards and social media

Contact Us

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there a fee to enter?

No. Participation in the Tournament is free of charge.

Who can participate?

Anyone. We welcome academic labs, industry teams, individual contributors worldwide, nonprofits, and independents.

What if i don't have a team?

You can register solo. We’ll help connect you with others or you can form your own team later.

Do I have to join both phases?

No. You can join just the predictive or generative phase. Participation is flexible.

Participation in the zero-shot track of the predictive phase is optional but highly encouraged.

What will be provided during each phase?
  • Predictive Phase (Zero-Shot Track): We will provide protein sequences for which we seek prediction of properties like activity, thermostability, or expression
  • Predictive Phase (Supervised Track): We will provide protein sequences for which we seek prediction of properties like activity, thermostability, or expression. We will provide a training dataset of activity, thermostability, and expression of natural PETase sequences and mutational variants.
  • Generative Phase (Round 1): We will provide a training dataset of activity, thermostability, and expression of natural PETase sequences and mutational variants.
  • Generative Phase (Round 2): In addition to the training dataset, we will also provide results of experimentally measured activity, thermostability, and expression data of the designed protein sequences submitted by each team.
How is intellectual property (IP) handeled?

Participants retain IP rights to all proteins they design and methods they use. If you create a novel, industrially relevant PETase during the Tournament you should patent it!

Read the details of our IP policy below.

Participation Consent Release
Will my predictions, designed protein sequences, abstract, code, and methods be public?

Anonymized predictions, designed protein sequences, and associated experimental results for all teams will made public at the completion of the Tournament.

Top performing teams will be de-anonymized after the completion of the Tournament.

Can I participate anonymously?

Teams will be anonymized during the Tournament. Top-performing teams will be de-anonymized at the end of the Tournament.

What do I need to submit?
  • Each team submits their property predictions (predictive phase) or designed protein sequences (generative phase). You also must submit an abstract describing your modeling approach.
  • Sharing detailed methods and deposition of code on Github is strongly encouraged but not required.
How do I enter the generative round?

There are two pathways to enter the Generative round:

  1. Top performers from the Predictive phase will earn automatic entry.
  2. Other teams may apply directly to participate in the Generative round.

Still have questions? Email us at tournament@alignbio.org.

The Tournament is organized for advancing research purposes and public knowledge regarding the useful engineering of proteins. All teams must comply with our participation terms and conditions. Please see the full agreement here.