Software

Software in iGEM should make synthetic biology based on standard parts easier, faster, better or more accessible to our community.

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Best Software Tool

Regardless of what the topic is, iGEM projects often create or adapt computational tools to move their overall project forward. Because they are born out of a direct practical need, these software tools (or new computational methods) can even prove surprisingly useful for others. Without necessarily being big or complex, they can make the crucial difference to a project's success. This award tries to find and honor such "nuggets" of computational work. To be eligible, your software has to be documented and made available under an OSI-approved open-source license.


Visit the Special Prizes page for more information.

What Should this Page Contain?


This page should aim to make your software accessible and understandable to a wide audience, supplementing the detailed technical documentation available on the repository.

  • Provide a clear and concise overview of the software's purpose and functionality.
  • Use non-technical language to make it accessible to a broad audience.
  • Create step-by-step instructions on how to use the software.
  • Include screenshots and visual aids to guide users.
  • Explain how to integrate the software with other tools or platforms.
  • Explain the key design choices made during the software's development.
  • Discuss any trade-offs or compromises made during the design process.
  • Provide a high-level overview of the software's architecture.
  • Provide clear instructions on how to deploy and install the software.
  • Provide an overview of the software's API, if applicable.

Jett's Version: All of it, open.


The section below is a separate, independently-written draft, produced by a team member outside the main documentation process. Kept here for reference and comparison; not yet fact-checked by team leadership.

Every line of code — the kinetic model, the assay-data pipeline, and the wiki itself — described as living in a public repository under an MIT license. The stated argument: an iGEM team's most-cited contribution is rarely the wet lab itself, but a small, well-documented, reusable tool.

Three small tools

  • synpetic-kinetics — Python, NumPy, SciPy. A coupled Michaelis–Menten ODE solver using the parameters described on the Jett's Version of Model section, with a notebook walkthrough.
  • synpetic-wiki — the wiki itself, described as vanilla HTML/CSS/JS with a Three.js 3D layer, no framework, no bundler, deployable to igem.wiki as static files.
  • synpetic-assays — a small data pipeline for HPLC and densitometry outputs; CSV in, summary plots out.

Continue to Jett's Version of Hardware → · Back to Jett's Version of Model