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BiOGuide

Welcome to BioGuide

The ultimate platform for BiOlogy Enthusiasts.

🧬 Why BioGuide?

BioGuide is the only free, comprehensive study guide for biology olympiads that combines:

  • Depth-first content — IBO targeted depth, Not just name-dropping, not too deep into the rabbitholes.
  • Interactive simulators — Plotly-powered visualizations that clarify hard concepts, Simulating tests and a lot more to come!
  • Practice problems — IBO/USABO-style questions with fully explained answers
  • Open contributions — Anyone can help fix errors or add new topics. Just follow the rules below!

We cover the full IBO syllabus — 15+ sections, 150+ topic pages,666+ Static files, 208+ Interactive widgets, growing every week.

🧭 Main Features

📚

Study Resources

The full IBO/USABO syllabus — 150+ topic pages across 15 sections, with diagrams, comparisons, and practice problems.

Browse Resources →
🧬

About BiOGuide

Why we built this, how content gets reviewed before publishing, and who's behind it.

Learn Our Story →
✍️

BiOInsights

Exam-technique tips and lab-practical guides that go beyond the core syllabus notes.

Read BiOInsights →
🗂️

BiOrchive

Past olympiad papers, browsable by year and round, with solutions and an attempt mode.

Explore BiOrchive →

📖 Syllabus Format Covered:

1. Molecular, Cell Biology & Biochemistry
Cell structure, biomolecules, enzymes, membrane transport, and core biochemical pathways.
✅ Verified
2. Animal Anatomy
Structural anatomy for IBO/USABO, from human systems to comparative vertebrate and invertebrate body plans.
✅ Verified
3. Animal Physiology
The function-side complement to Animal Anatomy: regulatory and organ-system mechanisms across taxa.
✅ Verified
4. Biosystematics
Classification and phylogenetics: taxonomic hierarchy, species concepts, cladistics, molecular systematics.
5. Plant Physiology
Water/nutrient transport, photosynthetic biochemistry, hormone-driven growth, and stress physiology.
✅ Verified
6. Plant Anatomy
Plant tissue systems, root/stem/leaf structure, and reproductive anatomy.
✅ Verified
7. Genetics
Mendelian inheritance and its extensions, sex linkage and pedigree analysis, chromosomal linkage/mapping and aberrations, and quantitative/non-Mendelian inheritance.
✅ Verified
8. Ecology
Population dynamics, community ecology, ecosystems, biogeography, and conservation biology.
✅ Verified
9. Ethology
Animal behavior: proximate/ultimate causation, learning, communication, and social structure.
✅ Verified
10. Bioinformatics
Databases, BLAST, alignments, phylogenetics, genome analysis, and protein structure.
✅ Verified
11. Practical I
Coming soon.
12. Practical II
Coming soon.
13. Practical III
Coming soon.
14. Plant Computational Biology
ImageJ/Fiji image analysis and Streamlit interactive plotting for the IBO practical.
✅ Verified
15. Evolution
Evidence for evolution, population genetics, speciation, macroevolution, and evo-devo.
✅ Verified

🎯 Where to Start

If you’re completely new to olympiad biology:

  1. Cell Biology & Biochemistry — The foundation
  2. Genetics — Core concepts for every exam
  3. Animal Anatomy — Systematic approach to anatomy

If you have a weak spot: Use the search bar (top right) or browse sections by topic.

If you’re preparing for a specific exam:

  • USABO: Focus on Cell Biology, Genetics, and Physiology (heavily tested)
  • IBO: Expect broad coverage across all sections, with emphasis on data analysis
  • Practical exams: See the Bioinformatics and Practical sections for hands-on simulations

🧪 What Makes BioGuide stand Out

🌱 Our Plant Computational Biology Website

This is a completely indigenous resource for practicing Plant Computational Biology, which although was only in the practicals for IBO 2026, is still relevant.

🧬 IBO 2022 Bioinformatics Practical Simul

This is another indeigenous website we created to help with bioinformatics practicals. It is a dynamic creation helping people seriously commit to IBO preparation.

📊 Practice Tests

Full-screen, timed, with subject breakdown and personalized recommendations.

🤝 Contribute to BioGuide

BioGuide follows AOGuide’s open contribution model:

  • Found an error? Open a GitHub Issue or submit a PR
  • Want to add a topic? Follow the template in handoff.md
  • Have a better diagram? Source it and we’ll add it

We need help with:

  • Expanding our Current BiOrchive - Send an email to resourcerepository4boguide@gmail.com for this purpose.
  • More and improved interactive widgets (especially for Cell/Molecular Biology)
  • Adding diagrams to pages that still have placeholders

Contribute on GitHub →

📊 Recent Updates

  • Aug 2026: Discussions — open feedback and comment threads for the whole community, no gatekeeping to read, an account to post.
  • Aug 2026: BiOClash — an original biology competition we're building, plus a Champions leaderboard on the Hall of Fame page ready for Season 1's results.
  • Aug 2026: Accounts, profiles, and a Hall of Fame leaderboard for BiOrchive Timed Attempts — completely optional, everything still works without logging in.
  • Aug 2026: Cell & Molecular Biology (23 pages) — complete with 80+ images and interactive widgets.
  • Aug 2026: Ethology (9 pages) — complete with 18 interactive widgets.
  • Jul 2026: Plant Anatomy (10 pages) — complete with 48 images and 20 interactive widgets.

💬 Join the Community

  • Discord: Chat with other students, ask questions, share resources
  • GitHub Issues: Report typos, request features, discuss content

📄 License

Content (text) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — free to share and adapt for non-commercial purposes, with attribution.

Images: See image-sources.md for per-image licensing status. A full licensing audit is pending.