APPLYING IS EASY
- Explore our Student Resources page for space biology inspiration
- Your focus should have a molecular or genetic basis that can be tested
Review a sample application and this year’s scoring criteria
- Learn about the Genes in Space Toolkit available to astronauts
- Your experiment should make clear and reasonable use of one or more of the elements of the Toolkit
- The 2025 Genes in Space contest is no longer accepting applications for the 2025 competition. Watch for awardee announcements on our blog, and check back to apply for our next contest in 2026!
AWARDS
All participating schools will have a chance to win one of 25 DNA Discovery Systems, each including a miniPCR® thermal cycler and a blueGel™ electrophoresis system.
We celebrate all of these values
- Creativity and innovation – meet our past winners
- Youth Engagement – learn about our Junior Scientist Awards
- Class participation – read about our Constellation Awards
- Mentorship – meet the Genes in Space mentors
TIMELINE
FAQ
You must submit your experimental idea online on or before April 14, 2025 at 11:59pm PDT. This year's contest is now closed, but will open again in January of 2026!
No. Your submission will be judged on creative and scientific merit of your idea. If selected as the winner, you will attend Space Biology Camp to prepare your experiment for space travel.
Not necessarily! You may use any tool in the Genes in Space Toolkit - alone or together. However, access to these tools or prior knowledge of how to use them is not required.
For the purposes of your proposal, yes. Your Genes in Space proposal may include any tool that is necessary for your experiment. For example, many prior Genes in Space experiments have involved analysis by gel electrophoresis after samples have been returned to Earth. Genes in Space-6 incorporated CRISPR and direct DNA sequencing of samples amplified on-orbit. Genes in Space winners will work alongside their mentors, astronauts, and space biologists to push the boundaries of DNA analysis in space!
Finalists’ schools will be awarded a complete DNA Discovery System for their schools. Each kit includes a miniPCR thermal cycler, a blueGel™ electrophoresis system, and a 20 µl micropipette- a $950 value
Yes! The winning experimental design will be conducted aboard the International Space Station, pending approval from The ISS National Laboratory. The exact launch date will be determined after winners are announced.
miniPCR is a conventional (end point) PCR thermal cycler. However, you can propose an experiment that uses quantitative PCR (also referred to as real-time PCR or qPCR). It won’t affect your chances of winning the competition.
AI tools may not be used for idea generation or writing content, but there are acceptable uses of this technology. Continue here to read our framework for how A.I. tools can be used responsibly in our competition.
2025 finalists will present their ideas to contest judges at the ASCEND Conference, which will be held July 22 - 24th, 2025 in Las Vegas, NV. At least one student from each finalist team must be available to present at the conference.
You can use the “Finalists” tag on our blog. You can also see the Finalists from 2020, 2021, 2022 , and 2023, and 2024 present their proposals to our judges, or read their proposals in the Journal of Emerging Investigators (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022,and 2023). Our 2024 Finalist proposals will be published soon!
No, not to the same Genes in Space contest. We can only accept one proposal per student per contest year. However you are welcome to participate in Genes in Space every year that you are eligible. That means you can submit your best idea this year and save your other ideas to submit in future years.
Unfortunately no, the current Genes in Space contest is only open to students in 7-12th grade who live on United States soil (US States and territories). In 2016 we offered a contest in the United Arab Emirates and hope to offer more international contests in the future.
Absolutely! In fact, our 2018 winning team was made up of students from different high schools.
Yes! We welcome submissions from homeschooled students.
You can email us at genesinspace@minipcr.com.
PAST WINNERS
Anna-Sophia Boguraev
Fox Lane High School, NY
Current position: MD/PhD student at Harvard University/Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project: To test the effect of cosmic radiation and microgravity on the immune system
Launched to space: April 2016
Published in NPJ Microgravity in 2017
Julian Rubinfien
Stuyvesant High School, NY
Current position: undergraduate student at Yale University
Project: To measure the length of telomeres in space
Launched to space: April 2017
Published in FASEB BioAdvances in 2019
Alia Al Mansoori
Al Mawakeb School, Dubai
Current position: undergraduate student at the University of Edinburgh
Project: To study gene expression changes in space that might help protect astronauts from unwanted cell death
Launched to space: August 2017
Published in PLoS One in 2018
Sophia Chen
Lakeside High School, WA
Current position: undergraduate student at Princeton University
Project: To measure cancer-inducing genomic instability in astronauts
Launched to space: April 2018
Liza Reizis
Stuyvesant High School, NY
Current position: undergraduate student at New York University
Project: To assess the effects of microgravity on the differentiation of immune system cells
Launched to space: April 2018
Rebecca Li, Michelle Sung, Aarthi Vijayakumar & David Li
Mounds View High School, MN (Rebecca, Michelle, and Aarthi), Woodbury High School, MN (David)
Current positions: undergraduate students at Yale University (Rebecca & Aarthi), Johns Hopkins (Michelle), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (David)
Project: To use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing as a tool to investigate double-strand break repair in microgravity
Launched to space: May 2019
Published in PLOS One in 2021
Finsam Samson & Yujie Wang
Troy High School, MI
Current positions: undergraduate students at Stanford University (Finsam) and UC Berkeley (Yujie)
Project: To study how spaceflight affects the expression of genes involved in neural function
Launched to space: November 2020
Kristoff Misquitta
Stuyvesant High School, NY
Current position: undergraduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project: To probe the basis of spaceflight-induced changes in drug metabolism
Launched to space: August 2021
Selin Kocalar
Leigh High School, CA
Current position: undergraduate student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project: To develop a biosensor to test for water contamination aboard spacecraft
Launched to space: July 2022
Published in ACS Synthetic Biology in 2024
Pristine Onuoha
East Chapel Hill High School, NC
Project: To understand the basis for telomere lengthening observed in space travelers
Launched to space: June 2023
Isabel Jiang
Crystal Springs Uplands School, CA
Current Position: Attending Yale University
Project: Detection and Treatment of LINE1 Retrotransposon Activation in Space
Launched to space: September 2024
Isabelle Chuang & Julia Gross
The Nightingale-Bamford School, NY
Project: Real-time Tracking of Microgravity-Induced Effects on Phage-Host Interactions Using Fluorescence
Launching to space: 2025