On October 15th and 16th, 2026, the Hellenic Biocluster (HBio) hosted the BIO-RED Cross-Regional Hackathon “Organoids & Drug Discovery: From Lab Models to Patient Decisions” in Ioannina, Greece. Run in a hybrid format, it was HBio’s very first hackathon, and AccelBio took part online with two members of our team.

Interregional teams from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and the USA worked together over two days to develop solutions to three challenges facing the sector today: standardising organoid models so that systems are reproducible and comparable across labs, smart organoid manufacturing and analytics to scale production and turn data into reliable insight, and precision medicine, bringing patient-derived models closer to clinical decisions. The hackathon also brought together local research, industry, and innovation stakeholders, who shared breakthroughs and good practices and offered insights on entrepreneurship.

We are proud of our team’s contribution. Our PhD student Mafalda Vicente joined one of the interregional teams, participating online alongside colleagues from across Europe, and her team secured 2nd place. Congratulations, Mafalda! Our Innovation Manager, João Maia, also attended online and was one of the jury members, bringing his expertise in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The competition continues: the winning teams from all the Cross-Regional Hackathons will compete in the BIO-RED Inter-Regional Final Pitch Session on October 26th for a place in the BIO-RED Biotech & Pharma Accelerator Programme. Good luck to all the finalists!

Our thanks go to HBio for hosting the event, and to all the participants, speakers, mentors, and jury members who made it so memorable.