iGEM 2025/2026: Systems and Synthetic Biology in Healthcare and Pandemic Preparedness

Synthetic and Systems biology offers transformative potential in bolstering healthcare systems against infectious diseases and preparing for future pandemics. By integrating engineering principles with biological systems, synthetic biology enables the design of modular, rapid-response tools for diagnostics, vaccine development, and decentralized therapeutic production. These innovations enhance our ability to detect, prevent, and respond to emerging global health threats with speed, precision, and scalability. The convergence of synthetic biology with systems biology, data science, and global health strategies is reshaping how we approach outbreak management, epidemiological surveillance, and biomanufacturing.

This Research Topic aims to explore how synthetic and systems biology are being applied to improve pandemic readiness and infectious disease control. This includes novel biosensor platforms for early detection, programmable biological circuits for immune modulation, and scalable vaccine and therapeutic production pipelines. Advancements in pathogen surveillance tools, RNA-based vaccines, synthetic antimicrobials, and biosafety frameworks are enabling more robust and equitable healthcare responses to epidemics and global pandemics.

To gather further insights into synthetic and systems biology-driven solutions for global health resilience, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
● Synthetic diagnostics for rapid, point-of-care detection of infectious agents;
● Modular and distributed vaccine production technologies using synthetic and/or systems biology;
● Engineered organisms and biosensors for pathogen surveillance and outbreak prediction.
● Biocontainment, biosafety, and biosecurity strategies in healthcare settings;
● Synthetic and/or systems biology approaches to antimicrobial resistance and emerging pathogens;
● Innovations in biomanufacturing for accessible pandemic response infrastructure.

This Research Topic encourages submissions from the iGEM community working at the intersection of these fields. We invite researchers to share their findings through various available formats such as original research, reviews, perspectives, technology and code, methods or hypothesis and theory. Please see our 2023 iGEM Collection and 2024 iGEM Collection for an idea of systems level papers.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology, Pandemic, Infectious Disease, Control, Biosensors, Vaccine, Pathogen, Biological Circuits, Biomanufacturing, Antimicrobial

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.