News 2025

  • COMBO M18 meeting held online

    COMBO M18 meeting held online in July 2025

    On 1 July 2025, the COMBO project held an online meeting where all Work Package (WP) leaders presented the main results regarding innovative culture methods for marine biodiscovery. The presentations highlighted significant advancements and ongoing challenges in the project. Following the presentations, in-depth discussions were conducted about the achievements so far and the future prospects of the research. The team also welcomed Fay Ioannou and Vassilios Roussis from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) as new partners in the COMBO consortium. Looking ahead, the team committed to preparing thoroughly for the upcoming interim review scheduled for 4 September 2025.
  • Marine Camp in Carna

    A marine camp organised by University of Galway in Conamara

    On 23 June 2025, the University of Galway organized a marine camp in Carna, Conamara, aimed at children aged 12 to 17 years. The event provided a hands-on learning experience about marine biodiversity, featuring presentations of the latest findings from the COMBO project. Students from the Marine Biodiversity group, under the guidance of Dr. Reddy, showcased their research results to the young attendees. The camp was efficiently coordinated by Camille Bernard and Romain Alawoe, ensuring a well-structured and engaging program for all participants.

  • Galway at IPC13

    University of Galway presenting COMBO at the IPC 13

    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.

  • Fay and Vassilios

    Colleagues from NKUA join COMBO

    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.

News 2024

  • Meeting in Wageningen

    M12 COMBO meeting in Wageningen

    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.

  • Seaweeds at Hortimare

    Seaweeds at Hortimare

    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.

  • Science Day at the Pays de la Loire

    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.

  • Ulysses Dublin

    Ulysses Conference in Dublin

    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

  • Haliclona viscosa

    Diving in Sceirde Rocks

    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.

  • M6 COMBO meeting Nice

    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.

  • Third field trip in Villefranche-sur-Mer

    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.

  • Second field trip in Cape Town

    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.

  • Dictyota from South Africa

    First field trip in South Africa

    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

  • Kick-Off Meeting in Galway

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