A team of public high school students in Georgia faced skepticism when they decided to try to detect Lyme disease earlier.
Students at Lambert High School in suburban Atlanta used the gene-editing tool CRISPR and took their project to iGEM, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition in Paris. Now scientists say the students’ work could be a major breakthrough if further testing confirms the results.
“We’re doing something in our high school lab that could potentially have a huge impact for, like, millions of people,” said senior Claire Lee. “This thing could help save lives.”
What the Lambert team developed
Led by captains Sean Lee and Avani Karthik, the students work in synthetic biology—combining biology, engineering, genetics and computer science—to solve real-world problems for iGEM. They focused on Lyme disease, which affects nearly half a million Americans a year and is hard to detect in the first two weeks when treatment is most effective.
Left untreated, Lyme can cause arthritis, nerve damage and heart problems. “One of the biggest problems with Lyme is the lack of, like, being able to diagnose it,” Karthik said. “So a lot of people will go years, like, we’ve met someone who went 15 years without a diagnosis.”
The students targeted a protein produced during Lyme infection. They used CRISPR to remove extraneous genetic material from simulated blood serum to expose that protein, then planned to highlight it with a simple kit-style test—similar in concept to COVID-19 or pregnancy tests. For treatment, they explored using a different form of CRISPR to block the bacteria, as an alternative to antibiotics that can face resistance.
The team’s biotechnology teacher, Kate Sharer, warned them it was “very high risk, high reward” and said she couldn’t imagine “any of this working,” but supported the students’ efforts. The students also sought feedback from university professors and other stakeholders, who initially questioned the project’s feasibility given its scope.
Resources and background
Lambert’s lab is college-level, supported by Forsyth County taxpayers and corporate donors, and the district is affluent and high-achieving. Lambert’s student body is majority Asian-American; this year’s iGEM team was entirely Asian-American and mostly children of immigrants. Some families move into the district to give their children a chance to join the competitive iGEM program. About 100 students apply for roughly 10 spots each year; applicants submit proposals, take a test and are interviewed.
After months of research and testing, in September the team saw encouraging lab results: they detected signs of Lyme as early as two days after infection—far sooner than the roughly two weeks required by existing tests. The findings were proof of concept using simulated serum; much more testing is needed to determine whether the method works on human blood.
The competition
With an October deadline approaching, the team worked long hours, built a website explaining their work to judges, and traveled to Paris for iGEM, which drew more than 400 teams from around the world, including many high school teams. Projects ranged from enzymes to treat indoor mold to crops designed for Mars.
Janet Standeven, who runs iGEM’s international high school division and who taught at Lambert and helped create its program, said she wants synthetic biology programs in every American high school. She secured federal funding to build such programs across Georgia but said the funding was cut earlier this year by the Trump administration, which characterized it as falling under diversity, equity and inclusion; a judge temporarily restored the funding but its future beyond May 2026 remained uncertain. “Absolutely devastated. I was angry,” Standeven said.
Stanford professor and iGEM co-founder Drew Endy warned that America’s lead in synthetic biology is slipping as China prioritizes the field. “It’s urgent that leadership of the next generation of biotechnology has a strong presence in America and it’s represented by young American leaders,” he said. In Paris, Endy praised Lambert’s work: “This year they appear to have developed a better diagnostic for Lyme disease than anything I’ve seen before. It’s not only applicable to Lyme disease, but anything you could find in your blood.”
Outcomes
Lambert did not win the grand prize; the top award went to Great Bay in Shenzhen, China. Lambert won iGEM’s best software tool award and finished in the high school top 10— the only American team in that group. The top 10 otherwise included teams from South Korea, Taiwan and China.
The students’ results are promising but preliminary. Their testing demonstrated the potential for much earlier detection using CRISPR-based methods in simulated serum, and they proposed a pathway to a simple kit for early diagnosis. Additional validation on human blood and further development would be needed before the approach could be translated into clinical use.