02 Jul 2nd Annual consortium meeting

The partners of the BOTS project gathered on March 6, 2026, at the Faculdade de Medicina of the Universidade do Porto for their annual in-person meeting. The partners shared significant progress and outlined the next steps toward achieving the project’s objectives.

One of the main current challenges is to develop new marine-derived hydrogels capable of replacing traditional hydrogels used in laboratories. These hydrogels, which more closely mimic the natural environment of human cells, could improve the quality of breast cancer research and lead to more personalized treatments.

Discussions highlighted the promising development of these hybrid hydrogels. Specifically, this involves combining the expertise of the chemistry teams at the University of Bordeaux and the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour. For the biologists, cell culture methods have been optimized, yielding more reliable, reproducible, and higher-quality organoid cultures. Researchers are now ready to test the new hybrid hydrogels as soon as they are ready, both on cell lines and on tumor samples from patients. The goal is clear: to have high-performance materials available by summer 2026 in order to generate encouraging results before the end of the project.

The collaborative momentum and recent advances point to promising results, with significant potential for impact on research and, ultimately, for patients.