Students from NYU ITP were selected as finalists to present their work at the Biodesign Challenge (BDC) competition held at the Parsons School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on June 11th and 12th.
BDC is an international competition and educational program that brings together classrooms, scientists, artists, and designers to develop innovative projects addressing global challenges through biodesign. Each year, teams represent their schools at the Summit, presenting to distinguished judges from academia, the arts, and industry for a chance to win prizes. This year, students from over 60 schools across more than 20 countries presented their projects to an international audience.
ITP’s team earned bronze medal recognition from the judges for the narrative of their project, Inoculation Station, a speculative biotechnology system that repurposes the invasive spotted lanternfly as a carrier for plant health. Using the fungus Beauveria Bassiana, the station infects lanternflies so that they temporarily distribute beneficial fungal agents through vineyards before dying naturally. Rather than eradicating the species, the system reframes it as a short-lived ecological tool - one that challenges how organisms are valued and questions the boundaries between pest, resource, and agricultural infrastructure in managed ecosystems.
The finalist team, led by professor Nikita Huggins, included Chuan Tsai, Ran Xu, Laurel Fang, Jerome Huang, and Sophia Collender. Apart from defending their research and design to the panel of judges, they exhibited the project to the BDC audience. Inoculation Station was the capstone outcome of Biodesign Studio: The Intersection of Science, Design + Technology, a graduate course at ITP.
