Prof. Olivier Thomas discussed the future of the Marine Station in Carna, Ireland, during the 50th Anniversary celebration on October 8, 2025. He emphasized the station’s vital role in supporting the seaweed and sponge research conducted within the COMBO project.

Several partners of the COMBO Project participated in the 12th World Sponge Conference, held in Vila do Conde, Portugal, from 9th to 13th September 2025.

Hosted in the beautiful coastal town of Vila do Conde, the conference brought together leading scientists, researchers, and industry stakeholders from around the world to share the latest advances in sponge biology, ecology, biotechnology, and marine conservation.

Representatives from the University of Galway and Wageningen University & Research joined fellow COMBO partners to present their latest research findings, engage in collaborative discussions, and explore innovative approaches to sustainable marine resource management. Their contributions highlighted the project’s ongoing commitment to advancing knowledge on sponge-based solutions and fostering cross-sector collaboration.

Dr Maggie Reddy and Prof. Olivier Thomas from the University of Galway gave oral presentations at the International Phycological Congress 13 organised in Bohol - Philippines from 8 to 13 June 2025. They presented work on the seaweeds Dictyota but also an integrative approach on the kelp Ecklonia in Southern Africa.

COMBO – HOP ON aims to support further the main objectives of COMBO through the involvement of Fay Ioannou and Vassilious Roussis from NKUA as a widening partner from Greece starting 1st February 2025. Through their extensive expertise in the natural products’ diversity of these two families of seaweed terpenoids, NKUA will provide key support to the tasks related to COMBO. At the same time, NKUA will undertake the lead role for new tasks towards the exploitation of natural products from the selected families of marine organisms by evaluating their anti-aging potential enabling applications in the field of cosmeceutics and nutraceutics.

COMBO had its general assembly in Wageningen - Netherlands on the 18 December 24. Detmer Sipkema and Marnix Medema perfectly organized this hybrid event. Through the participation of all partners including our sister project BLUES, COMBO is smoothly entering its second year.

Hortimare has provided key information to establish a SOP on the collection and shipment of seaweed samples for safe transportation among COMBO partners. They are currently working in developping a clean source of seedstock which enables the cultivation of our target species of red and brown seaweeds Laurencia and Dictyota producing highly bioactive metabolites.

High turnout at the "Science Day" organised by the University of Angers between the 4th and 14th October 2024. COMBO was on the spotlight through a communication workshop organised by our local partners Nicolas Papon and Charlotte Godon.

The French Embassy in Ireland and the Irish Research Council invited prestigious speakers to attend the annual Ulysses conference on Franco-Irish research and innovation, on the topic of “Marine Biodiversity and Resources in a Changing Environment” Tuesday 10 September 2024. Olivier Thomas from the University of Galway chaired the morning discussion around Human changing activities and marine biodiversity and the event was closed with an inspiring talk from the Irish Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan

Friday 6 September 2024 was a summer day in South Conamara. Blathnaid Doyle, Stephen McCusker, Olivier Thomas and the skipper Pat left Roundstone to dive around the beautiful Sceirde Rocks. The first samples of Haliclona viscosa were collected for COMBO.

The Institut de la Mer de Villefranche IMEV kindly offered the EMBRC services to the COMBO team. Friday 5 July 2024, COMBO members were able to run our Month 6 meeting in a hybrid mode with the participation of all WP leaders for fruitful discussions.

From 3 July to 5 July 2024, a group of 7 COMBO staff participated in a fantastic field collection of unique sponges and seaweeds from the Mediterranean coast. Target sponge species Haliclona sarai and Crambe crambe were collected together with a diversity of Dictyota brown seaweeds.

Between 2 - 12 April 2024, the WP2 leader Maggie Reddy assisted by Mila Geldenhuys (UCT) organised a field trip around Cape Town. Gregory Genta-Jouve (CNRS) and Olivier Thomas (University of Galway) helped with the subtidal collection. More than 100 samples of sponges and seaweeds some of them new to science were collected and they are now stored in the biomaterial repository for analysis.

At the outset of the project in January 2024, the first COMBO samples were collected from the east coast of South Africa during a field trip led by Dr Reddy. Over 20 samples were carefully collected, and sent to the different partners within the consortium

All partners met in Galway on the 26th of January 2024 for the kick-off meeting of our exciting project COMBO