The Tournament
A protein engineering competition where the winner is determined by experiment.
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.
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.
HOW IT WORKS
The 2025 Tournament includes two 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.
TRACKS
ZERO-SHOT (no training data) 🏆 Prize: $2,500
SUPERVISED (training data on natural sequences + mutants) 🏆 Prize: $5,000
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
Now – Oct 17, 2025
Registration Open
WHY JOIN?
$30,000 in cash prizes
DNA synthesis and experimental testing of your designs
Leaderboard 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)
PLANNING COMMITTEE
Bijoy Desai - Technical Project Manager, The Align Foundation
Chase Armer - PhD Student, Columbia University
David Estell - Fellow and Laureate, International Flavors and Fragrances
David Ross - Physicist, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Aviv Spinner - Protein Engineering ML Research Fellow, The Align Foundation
Gina El Nesr - PhD Student, Stanford University
Tamuka (Muk) Chidyausiku - Principal Scientist, Pledge Therapeutics
Neil Thomas - Research Scientist, Evolutionary Scale
Peter Kelly - Co-founder and Head of Science, The Align Foundation
Steffanie Paul - Machine Learning Scientist, Metaphore Biotechnologies
Nov 3, 2025
Predictive Phase (Zero-Shot) Begins
Dec 1, 2025
Predictive Phase (Supervised) Begins
Dec 29, 2025
Top teams invited to Generative phase
Jan 5, 2026
Generative Phase Round 1 Begins
Mar 16, 2026
Generative Phase Round 2 Begins
June 1, 2026
Winners Announced
Nov 15, 2026
Final Results Published
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
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. Participation is free of charge.
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Anyone. We welcome academic labs, industry teams, individual contributors worldwide, nonprofits, and independents.
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You can register solo. We'll help connect you with others or you can form your own team later.
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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.
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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.
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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 here.
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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. -
Teams will be anonymized during the Tournament. Top-performing teams will be de-anonymized at the end of the Tournament.
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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.
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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.
Terms of Participation & Disclaimers
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.