Quas Drinks with the organising committeeTeams at work in the NucleusHacking on SaturdayTeams working through a challengePitching to the judgesMentors and teams in discussionLab visit during the weekendBreakfast in the Nucleus
Watch
The 2026 film
See what 48 hours of hacking, mentoring and pitching looked like at Scotland's first student-led biohackathon.
The first edition drew applications from across the UK, and almost everyone selected stayed for the full weekend.
Who came
350
Applications
from across the UK
100+
Participants
selected on merit
14
UK universities
represented in the cohort
>95%
Attendance
stayed the full weekend
What we built it with
7
Challenges
from labs and industry
15
Sponsors & partners
funding, compute, prizes
15
Judges & mentors
gave up their weekend
3
Workshops
Git, HPC and IP training
Award winner · June 2026
PGR Impact Award
Our 2026 organising committee received the PGR Impact Award from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, at the Postgraduate Research Student Symposium.
Teams at workPitching to judgesWinning project: Filament Fillies
See who took part, the eight winning projects, photos and what people said.
The weekend sits inside a longer programme. Participants train before it and keep building after it, with biologists, programmers and industry partners working side by side throughout.
Before · weeks ahead
Pre-hackathon workshops & training
Technical training: Git & GitHub, HPC on Eddie, Python
Intellectual property and commercialisation basics
Q&A sessions and team matchmaking
2026: three workshops with Edinburgh Innovations, CIIE and Digital Research Services
The weekend · 48 hours
BioHackathon
Real challenges from academic labs and industry
Interdisciplinary teams of 4–6
Mentors on hand, final pitches to expert judges, prizes
Unite life scientists and programmers through collaborative problem-solving on real biological and computational challenges.
Objective
Foster academia–industry partnerships
Co-design challenges with academic and industrial partners, exposing students to authentic problem-based learning and professional mentoring.
Objective
Create sustainable pathways for innovation
Post-event mentoring and support for project continuation, growing into a recurring Bio-Innovation Series.
Meet candidates while they build
Sponsorship 2027
A careers fair and a 48-hour assessment centre in one. See how people think, collaborate and build under pressure. Challenge providers get prototype solutions to real problems, and sponsors can have teams build on their APIs, software or compute for real developer feedback.
Challenge tracks
Sponsors can set a challenge in any of the three tracks.
Academic Research Track
Open research problems from academic labs, with real datasets and academic mentors.
Industry Innovation Track
Practical challenges from biotech, health and data companies, built into working prototypes.
Non-Coder Problem-Solving Track
Experimental design, strategy and storytelling, for participants without a coding background.
Teams in each track compete in a final presentation and pitch session, with winners selected by a judging panel.
Who's in the room
An interdisciplinary cohort, by design
Balanced teams of 4–6 across wet-lab, dry-lab, computational and non-coding disciplines, from 14 universities including UCL, Cambridge, Imperial, Glasgow, St Andrews and Dundee.
Biology, medicine & life sciences
Bioinformatics
Computer science & AI
Physics & maths
Chemistry
Business
Where they came fromEdinburgh · 52%Other UK unis · 48%Who they wereUG · 12%PGT · 15%PhD · 55%Postdocs & staff · 18%
Data & confidentiality
No sensitive data required
Setting a challenge never needs live clinical, patient or confidential data. Typical sources:
Public repositoriesClinicalTrials.gov, UniProt, GEO, TCGA, PDB, Ensembl
Non-confidential subsetsFrom industry R&D or open-access labs
Synthetic or anonymised dataPrepared before the event
No data at allWorkflow, API testing or non-coding problems
Participants keep ownership of their code; challenge providers get non-exclusive access to all prototype repositories, documentation and methods.
Sponsorship tiers
Gold£3,000
Silver£1,500
Bronze£500
Challenge ProviderFree · prizes only
Opt-in CVs and email contacts for all 100+ participants
✓
Workshop or technical session (up to 1 hour)
✓
✓
Exhibition space all weekend
✓
✓
✓
Talk at opening or closing ceremony (up to 15 min)
✓
✓
✓
✓
Send your own judging panel
✓
✓
✓
✓
Prominent logo on website, T-shirts, banners, slides and social
✓
✓
✓
✓
Thanks at ceremonies and a featured social post
✓
✓
✓
✓
Access to all submissions and prototypes from your track
✓
✓
✓
✓
Opening (Fri) and closing (Sun) ceremonies
✓
✓
✓
✓
Any sponsor can set a challenge, or sponsor without one; tell us your preference. In-kind support (catering, compute credits, software licences, merchandise) is also welcome.
Commit to two years
Two-year partners get 10% off year two and are credited as Anchor Partners in all event materials.
Propose a real, non-confidential biological, computational or data problem (workflows, datasets, pipelines, conceptual challenges). Teams prototype solutions, analyses or tools over the weekend. See the sponsorship tiers for details.
What is expected from challenge providers?
Define the problem statement, context and success criteria. Production-ready software is not expected. You can support teams by:
Sharing docs, tutorials or example repos (e.g. in intro slides)
An optional workshop or Q&A (up to 1 hour)
Answering questions and giving domain guidance during the event
No continuous engineering support or debugging of team environments is expected. The organisers run best-effort pre-event sanity checks.
What compute is available?
The University of Edinburgh provides access to the Eddie HPC cluster (including GPUs), onboarding on compute resources, and OpenAI API access for LLM-enabled challenges.
What presence is expected?
Opening ceremony, Friday afternoon, to introduce your challenge
Judging, awards and closing, Sunday afternoon
Optional Saturday Q&As and mentoring
What do sponsors get?
A sponsor stall and structured networking with participants
Visibility across event materials
A 5–10 minute challenge introduction at the opening ceremony
The option to host a 1-hour workshop or technical session
Can sponsors deliver technical training?
Yes, e.g. Snakemake. Either in the pre-hackathon workshop series or on Day 1, alongside academic-led sessions such as Git and Python.
Do sponsors need to provide prizes?
Challenge partners are asked to contribute prizes for their track's winning team (typically 4–6 people): merchandise or digital products, internships, shadowing, fast-track interviews, or other relevant incentives.
Are sponsors expected to contribute financially?
Challenge Providers contribute prizes only; Bronze, Silver and Gold are paid tiers (see above). Covering your own staff's travel is expected.
Is it suitable for recruitment?
Yes. The event showcases technical ability, problem-solving, teamwork and communication. Bring both technical staff and talent representatives.
When and where is the 2027 event?
Spring / early summer 2027 at the University of Edinburgh. Exact dates are to be confirmed; sponsors are confirmed in early 2027.
How many participants will there be?
We had 100+ participants in 2026. For 2027 we are aiming for 200–300.
Can we sponsor without setting a challenge?
Yes. Any tier can set a challenge or opt out; just tell us your preference.
Who owns the code and IP?
Participants keep ownership of the code they write. Challenge providers get non-exclusive access to all prototype repositories, documentation and methods from their track.
Do we need to share confidential data?
No. All challenges are non-confidential. Public, synthetic or anonymised data works, or no data at all.
Can we give in-kind support instead of cash?
Yes: catering, compute credits, software licences or merchandise.
Is there a multi-year option?
Yes. Commit to two years for 10% off year two and credit as an Anchor Partner.
Do we get access to participant CVs?
Gold sponsors receive opt-in CVs and email contacts for all participants.
Get in touch
Let's talk about 2027
Sponsorship, challenges, mentoring or volunteering. The 2027 event runs in spring / early summer at the University of Edinburgh, with sponsors confirmed in early 2027.
Decision support for biomedical funding committees. Keeps sourced facts, assumptions and model outputs separate, runs budget scenarios and writes committee-ready briefs.
Each track brings together people from life sciences, computing and related fields. Teams compete in a final pitch session, and a judging panel picks the winners.
Academic Research
Open research problems from labs
Modelling gene regulation, analysing imaging data, drug discovery and design, or machine learning on biological datasets. Sample datasets, academic mentors, and a route to follow-up collaborations.
Industry Innovation
Problem statements from companies
Practical, outcome-focused challenges from biotech, health and data companies, aimed at prototypes, pipelines or analytical insights. Direct exposure to industrial R&D and potential recruitment.
Non-Coder Problem-Solving
Design, strategy and storytelling
Experimental frameworks, conceptual solutions and project management for interdisciplinary challenges, through team exercises, scientific storytelling and design thinking.
The 2026 challenges
Aphelion IndustriesSynthetic biology, biotech applications and astrobiologyIndustry
Pacifico BiolabsBiological data analysisIndustry
Oxbridge Frontier IntelligenceAI and machine learning applied to biological problemsIndustry
Quas DrinksBiotechnology for sustainable beverages, open to non-codersNon-coding
Swain Lab, University of EdinburghComputer vision for microscopy image analysisAcademic
Hackathons UK (×2)Open and bonus challengesOpen
Best Business Idea in BioEntrepreneurship challenge judged by a VC and industry panelEnterprise
Programme
Before, during, after
Closed 13 Feb 2026
Application
Apply as an individual or a team. Outcomes by 20 Feb; confirm attendance by 27 Feb.
4–18 Mar 2026
Pre-hackathon workshops
Technical, entrepreneurial and communication workshops co-delivered with partners.
20–22 Mar 2026
BioHackathon
Opening ceremony, challenge introductions, team sprints and final pitches with prizes.
22 Mar – late Apr 2026
Post-hackathon
Follow-up workshops to refine ideas, explore entrepreneurial pathways and grow projects into long-term outcomes.
No. Some challenges involve coding, but dedicated non-coding tracks focus on experimental design, problem-solving and communication, so everyone can contribute.
How are teams formed?
Apply as an individual or as a team of 4–6. Individuals form teams on Discord and at in-person networking and team formation sessions before hacking starts.
Will there be prizes or certificates?
Yes. Winning teams receive prizes, and everyone gets a certificate of participation. Follow-on opportunities include incubators, funding and collaborations.
What support is available?
Pre-event workshops (technical skills, entrepreneurship, IP, Python, Git) and mentorship from academic and industry experts linked to each challenge. Travel support covers partial to full reimbursement, up to £60 per person, based on competition and need.
How much time commitment is expected?
Workshops are optional; pick by skill level. The hackathon runs from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, with final judging and awards on Sunday.
Can projects continue after the hackathon?
Yes. Selected projects may receive continued mentorship or sponsorship support, depending on partner interest and participant initiative.
Who organises the BioHackathon?
An independent, volunteer team of early-career researchers at the University of Edinburgh, led by Ian Yang (Swain Lab, School of Biological Sciences) and Apple Chew, with the Centre for Engineering Biology and partners across the University.
The team
Run by volunteers
Edinburgh BioHackathon is run by an independent team of early-career researchers, mostly PhD students and postdocs at the University of Edinburgh.
Ian YangDirector
Apple ChewDirector
Javi Mazo Gonzalez-ChorenEvents
Saurav SreejithLogistics
Elena HeinDesign / Marketing
Jinxuan CuiTech
Adriana CusiEvents
Horace ChanEvents
Zunaira AmanLogistics
Hari ShyamapantLogistics
Connor AylesworthLogistics
Davide MichielettoAdvisor
Tanmay GuptaExternal Judge
Acknowledgements
With thanks to
The 2026 edition would not have happened without the people who gave their weekend beyond the organising team.
Judges & mentors, by challenge
Academic track · Swain Lab, University of Edinburgh
Dr Bram PrevoPostdoctoral research associate
Dr Richard WheelerChancellor’s Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Oxbridge Frontier Intelligence
Dr Farah HuzairLecturer in Science, Technology & Innovation Studies
Dr Kate SmithFounder & CEO, ProfessorMe
Quas Drinks
Dr Anton PuzorjovFounder, Quas Drinks
Dr Marcus PricePostdoctoral research associate
Aphelion Industries
James Snape
Éanna Doyle
Dr Mason Robbins
Pacifico Biolabs
Washington Logrono
Hackathons UK
Erin Osher
Best Business Idea in Bio
Robert GelbTechstart Ventures
Dr Lysimachos ZografosEdinburgh Innovations
Mishal Howard-TaylorKoda Konsult
Advisors & workshop leads
Advisor
Peter SwainSchool of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh
Workshop leads
Dr Lysimachos ZografosIntellectual property · Edinburgh Innovations
Dr Alasdair IvensGit & GitHub · CIIE
Mike WallisEddie HPC · Digital Research Services
Thanks also to our sponsors and partners, the Centre for Engineering Biology, and Hack The Burgh for letting us adapt their website design for 2026.
