VU LSC Researchers Among the World’s Innovation Leaders in the “Young Inventors Prize 2025” Finals

Lithuania’s name is being heard among global innovation leaders — a team of researchers from Vilnius University’s Life Sciences Centre (VU LSC) has reached the finals of the prestigious European Patent Office (EPO) competition “Young Inventors Prize 2025.” Among the top ten finalists — selected from more than 450 candidates worldwide — are Lithuanians Laurynas Karpus, Vykintas Jauniškis, and Irmantas Rokaitis, co-founders of the biotech start-up Biomatter.

The award-nominated innovation was developed at VU LSC’s Institute of Biotechnology, in collaboration with Professor Rolandas Meškys and Dr. Donatas Repečka. The team created Intelligent Architecture™, an AI-based platform that enables the design of entirely new enzymes from the bottom up — eliminating the need to modify enzymes that already exist in nature.
“We’ve created an enzyme design technology limited only by our imagination. It opens new possibilities for solving 21st-century challenges in health and sustainability,” say the VU researchers.

Traditional enzyme engineering methods typically involve small changes to existing protein molecules, which limits their adaptability to modern industrial needs. The newly developed platform takes a bottom-up approach — building unique enzymes that are tailored to the specific demands of various industrial sectors.

By combining machine learning, physics-based modelling, and experimental lab testing, the system continuously improves the properties and functions of the enzymes it creates. The result: efficient, easily produced enzymes adapted to specific applications — supporting more effective biologics production, drug development, and sustainable chemical synthesis.

The team began with the development of the ProteinGAN algorithm, which demonstrated that it was possible to generate functional enzymes that do not exist in nature. This breakthrough led to the founding of Biomatter in 2018. In 2024, the company raised €6.5 million in investment to accelerate platform development. Today, the researchers’ enzymes are used across diverse fields — from infant nutrition to gene therapy, vaccine development, and protein engineering. Partners include international companies such as Kirin and ArcticZymes Technologies.

The Young Inventors Prize, awarded by the European Patent Office, honours innovators under the age of 30 whose work contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — in areas such as health, education, sustainable industry, and environmental protection. This recognition not only strengthens Lithuania’s reputation as a biotechnology country, but also highlights the potential of a new generation of scientists to create globally significant innovations.

The competition winners will be announced on 18 June 2025 during a live-streamed awards ceremony in Reykjavík, Iceland.