July 16, 2026 · 8 min read
We Did Not Have "Biotech Hackathon" on Our 2026 Bingo Card: Inside Nucleate NY's BioHack at NY Tech Week
Most hackathons ask "what can you build with this API." This one asked something harder: what can you build at the actual intersection of biology and computer science, in a single day, with real clinical and scientific stakes attached. We'll be honest when a biotech nonprofit said they wanted to run a hackathon on Loops House, we had questions. Not because it was a bad idea, but because we're a team of terminal-dwelling code nerds and the words "tumor board" and "510(k) submission" were not in our vocabulary. Turns out: that's exactly why it worked.
During NY Tech Week 2026, Nucleate NY ran its 3rd annual BioHack, this year themed NextGen BioAgents bringing together builders to design agentic systems for biotech and life sciences. 100 builders registered, 23 projects shipped, and $6,000 in prizes were on the line. Registration, submissions, and judging all ran on Loops House.
Loops House is an AI-native hackathon platform where builders ship, prove, and compete using real AI tools sponsor docs installed directly into a builder's IDE, AI-assisted ideation, and an AI Judge that evaluates every submission on evidence, not pitch quality. Here's what got built at NYC's biotech-focused hackathon, and who won.
The event, by the numbers
100 builders registered
23 projects submitted
$6,000 total prize pool
Presented during NY Tech Week, as part of Nucleate's AI in Life Sciences series
The setup
Nucleate is a nonprofit that translates breakthrough science from universities into real-world impact by empowering academic founders; its Activator program has helped form over 180 companies. Nucleate NY is the organization's student-led New York chapter, and this was its third BioHack: a hackathon built specifically around agentic systems that can autonomously reason, take action using tools or data, and adapt based on feedback applied to biology.
The brief was to build an "agent" in the true sense: something that reasons, acts, and adapts, aimed at a real problem in biotech, clinical research, or life sciences. Sponsors backing the event included Automattic, Cursor, Fulcrum Science, Nebius, New York Tech Week, Nucleate, and Pfizer with prizes structured around more than just cash: the top placement came with Nebius cloud credits and a private conversation with an industry leader, not just a check.
Who backed it
Seven sponsors put money, compute, tools, and credibility behind this event and for a biotech hackathon, the mix matters as much as the list.
Pfizer : one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, bringing the weight of enterprise pharma R&D to a room full of builders designing agents for clinical and regulatory workflows.
Nebius : the AI-native cloud platform that provided compute credits as part of the prize structure: $3,000 in credits for 1st place, $2,000 for 2nd, and $1,000 for 3rd. At least one submission : Scientific Consensus Engine : was built directly on Nebius Token Factory.
Cursor : the AI-first code editor. Adam Anzuoni, Cursor's GTM System Architect, also served as one of the event's judges, bringing the developer tooling perspective to a room evaluating biotech projects.
Fulcrum Science : a science-focused organization supporting events and builders shaping the future of AI-driven wet lab science, working toward a world where lab research is coordinated, automated, and software-defined.
Automattic : the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and more. Automattic's mission to democratize publishing and commerce extended here to backing builders who are democratizing access to biotech tooling.
Nucleate : both organiser and sponsor, putting institutional support behind the event's mission to remove barriers in biotech innovation.
New York Tech Week : the citywide event series that gave this hackathon its stage and its audience during one of NYC's biggest weeks for tech.
Prizes were structured around more than just cash, the 1st place winner received Nebius cloud credits plus a private lunch with NVIDIA's Global Alliance Manager for Omics, 2nd place got credits plus a mystery award, and 3rd got credits plus free professional headshots. The kind of prize structure that signals this isn't just a weekend side project.
What the organizer didn't expect to need
Running a bio-AI hackathon means thinking about scientific rigor, lab access, and judge calibration. What you don't always think about, according to Shay Beheshti, Nucleate NY's Co-Director of Growth, is where 23 teams are actually going to submit their projects.
"Using Loops House was a game changer for our hackathon. Often, when organizing an event like this, you don't think about some of the smaller but incredibly important details, like project submissions. When Loops House reached out, I realized I hadn't fully considered where participants would actually submit their projects. The platform ended up solving that problem seamlessly. Participants were able to ideate using the event-specific AI agent, which had access to all of our hackathon materials, and then submit their projects through the same portal. What I particularly appreciated was having a single, standardized place for submissions. It made it much easier for both organisers and judges to review projects consistently and ensure nothing was missing. And the best part? The projects and materials don't disappear after the event; they remain accessible. The AI agent also generates a score for each project, which was interesting to compare alongside the judges' evaluations and provided an additional perspective on the submissions."
- Shay Beheshti, Co-Director of Growth, Nucleate NY
That last point projects and materials don't disappear, matters more than it sounds. Every project from this hackathon is still live, browseable, and linkable right now. The submissions aren't locked in someone's Google Drive; they're part of a permanent, public record of what this community built.
The winners
Judging ran through Loops House's AI Judge, reading actual project evidence rather than pitch decks alone. Here's who took home the bounty:
🥇 1st Place HistoGen Enabling tumor boards with AI-assisted, pathology-derived data putting real diagnostic evidence in front of the clinicians who need to act on it.
🥈 2nd Place Phoenix An agentic evidence engine built for clinical trial rescue helping struggling trials find a path forward instead of quietly failing.
🥉 3rd Place PB&J Short for Predicates, Building, and Journey a tool built to help navigate 510(k) submissions, the notoriously painful regulatory process for medical devices.
Why talk only winners, when the rest of the projects were equally good
23 submissions in a biotech-focused hackathon means a lot of very specific, very real problems getting tackled at once. A few that stood out:
GutGuru billed simply as "the observation layer your physician was missing."
GenomicWatch ends the information blackout between appointments by automatically surfacing and explaining new research relevant to a patient's own genetic information.
Hsence is an AI-powered hormonal intelligence platform helping women understand, monitor, and take a preventive approach to their hormonal health using multimodal health data.
Scientific Consensus Engine a multi-agent system that ingests scientific literature and debates hypotheses through adversarial consensus to surface novel drug targets, built on Nebius Token Factory.
MRK III - QualForge turns a brochure into a signed, audit-ready validation binder in hours instead of weeks.
Brain Organoid Morphological Classifier built automated quality control for stem-cell-derived brain organoids, which is exactly as specialized and impressive as it sounds.
Browse everything the room built →
Who judged it
Evaluating bio-AI projects takes a specific kind of panel, and this one leaned into the intersection the event was named for: judges included a GTM system architect from Cursor, an AI tech lead from Cornell University, and a lead product manager from NVIDIA bringing perspective from AI tooling, academia, and enterprise compute into the same room to score the same projects.
The takeaway
Three BioHacks in, Nucleate NY has built something specific: NYC's hackathon for people who want to work at the actual intersection of biology and computer science, not just build a wrapper around an existing AI model. 23 shipped projects spanning tumor board diagnostics, clinical trial rescue, regulatory submissions, hormonal health, and drug target discovery is a wide spread of real problems tackled in a single day judged the same way every hackathon on Loops House is judged: on what was actually built.
Frequently asked questions
Is it free to participate in a hackathon on Loops House? Yes hackathons on Loops House are always free for builders to join. Prize pools, sponsor tracks, and platform costs are covered by event hosts and sponsors, not participants.
How do I find and join other hackathons on Loops House? Head to Explore Events to see live and upcoming hackathons. Each event page lists its build tracks, prize pool, and submission requirements, and registration happens right on the platform.
Does Loops House only host coding-focused hackathons? No Loops hosts hackathons across domains, including specialised ones like this biotech-focused event. The platform's AI Judge and submission flow work the same way regardless of the subject matter.
Can I participate solo, or do I need a team? Both are usually welcome. Team size limits vary by event, but solo builders are almost always an option check the specific event page for its rules.
What do I actually need to submit? A project title, a short pitch, a fuller description, and links to your repo and a live demo or video. The exact fields can vary slightly by event, but that's the core of it.
How are projects judged? Every submission goes through Loops House's AI Judge, which reads the actual project evidence and evaluates it against the event's bounty criteria not just the pitch. Human reviewers confirm final placements.
Can I host my own hackathon on Loops House? Yes. See how a Loops hackathon works or reach out at contact@loops.house to book a demo. Loops supports everything from a first-time community event to a multi-sponsor developer conference technical or not.
Can my company or community partner with Loops House as a sponsor? Yes Loops works with sponsors, ecosystems, and enterprise teams to run hackathons, put real projects in front of their team, and surface top builders. Reach out at contact@loops.house to talk through what that could look like.
Want to run something like this for your community? See how a Loops hackathon works, check out live and upcoming hackathons on Loops, or go straight to the NextGen BioAgents Hackathon event page.
