CRG kick-off Meeting for the 2025 Protein Engineering Tournament

Join CRG’s Team for the 2025 Protein Engineering Tournament

We’re building a team at CRG to compete in the 2025 Protein Engineering Tournament, organized by The Align Foundation.

The challenge: Enzymes are extraordinary molecular machines, capable of catalyzing complex reactions. Yet, designing them remains one of the grand challenges of biology.

The mission: engineer an improved PETase, an enzyme that breaks down plastic, by developing and applying AI-driven protein design methods.

We welcome everyone interested in enzymes, proteins, and creative science. Specifically:

• Enzyme enthusiasts & protein evolution nerds
• Biochemists & biophysicists
• Machine learning geeks & computational scientists
• Curious and motivated people from any background who want to explore this exciting challenge/field!

This is not just a project: it’s a large-scale collaborative hackathon with industry-relevant impact and translational science potential. If you’re curious, energetic, and open to teamwork, you belong here!

IMPORTANT: you don’t need to commit 100% of your time. Even if you only have bandwidth to brainstorm, share ideas on slack, or contribute occasionally, your input is valuable. This is a team effort, and every perspective counts!!

Why join the tournament AND our team?

• You will be part of a committed, energetic, and collaborative group at CRG.
• You will generate real-world & scientific impact, contributing with the design of plastic-degrading enzymes.
• You will showcase your research and compete for prestigious recognition (blogposts, publications…).
• You will get the chance to test your boldest ideas and designs.

What is the Protein Engineering Tournament?
The Protein Engineering Tournament is a global benchmarking initiative hosted by The Align Foundation. Inspired by CASP (the competition that led to AlphaFold2!!), the Tournament fosters collaboration, transparency, and rapid progress in AI-powered protein design.
The first edition in 2023 proved that community-driven challenges can generate rigorous benchmarks and real scientific impact. This year, the focus is on PETase, an enzyme central to microplastic degradation and the circular plastic economy.

The 2025 Tournament includes two consecutive phases:
Predictive Phase. Nov. 3 – Dec. 23, 2025

• Predict mutation effect on protein variants (activity, expression, stability).
• Top teams advance automatically to the Generative Phase.

Generative Phase. Jan. 5 – Apr. 10, 2026

• Design 200 novel PETase sequences with enhanced activity, thermostability, and expression.
• Submitted designs will be synthesized and tested by the organizers.

Full description of the challenge can be found [HERE].

Want to be part of the team? Or are still undecided?

Come to our kick-off meeting!
Here you will:

• Learn more about the challenge, objectives and possible outcomes.
• Join our Slack channel and start brainstorming.
• Sign up to take part in regular group and subgroup hackathons as the project develops.

Date: September 23rd
Time: 12:00 - 13:00h
Location: Training Center

Register now!

If you have any questions, or you already would like to join the team/slack, feel free to contact Filippo Stocco (Ferruz's lab) or training@crg.eu