By Ángela García de la Camacha
“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division, that will release another version of yourself. This is the Substance. You are the matrix. Everything comes from you. Everything is you. This is simply a better version of yourself. You just have to share. One week for one and one week for the other. A perfect balance of seven days each. The one and only thing not to forget: You. Are. One. You can’t escape from yourself.”
This is the opening of “The Substance”, the film that turned Hollywood upside down in 2024. And this month at the BCD group, we decided to revisit this cinematic masterpiece, not just to shout out that Demi Moore deserved an Oscar (and Margaret Qualley at least a nomination!), but because something wild happened the other day in the lab.
M.Sc. Materials Science and Engineering
Ph.D. student in the BCD group at IMDEA Materials Institute. Her multidisciplinary academic and professional background reflects long expertise in mechanics, 3D printing, material science and engineering. Her current work focuses on bioabsorbable multimaterial 3D printed scaffolds for cartilage, bone and osteochondral regeneration.
We were analysing the results of direct test on Zn samples, one of the methods we use to test the cytocompatibility of the materials we develop. These tests help us understand how cells interact with our materials. The procedure? Cells are seeded directly on top of the samples and incubated under physiological conditions.
In this case, L929 cells were cultured for 24h on Zn samples to assess cell attachment and morphology using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and what we saw under the microscope caught us completely off guard…
It wasn’t just a cell.
It was THE scene from “The Substance”.
The division scene. The double yolk moment.
“One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division”.
“…a new cellular division”.
EXACTLY! That’s what we were seeing.
Once again, science meets cinema. Because where there is science, there is room for wonder, for story… and, of course, for art.
And in our case, honestly, isn’t this cell dividing so gracefully on our Zn material, as if saying: “This material is so biocompatible that I am ready to multiply”
Worthy of its own Oscar, right?
Don’t forget to follow us @BCD_IMDEA to keep updated of all the relevant information from the BCD group!
BCD research group has recently published a new publication in Biomaterials Advances! Congrats to our colleagues, Oscar, Jesus and Monica! Title: Effect of surface modification methods on 3D-printed NiTi alloys
Dr. Jesús Ordoño, Guillermo Domínguez and Nafiseh Mollaei from BCD group gave three talks in the Winter Metals Meeting 2025 at IMDEA Materials Institute. ¨Effect of surface modification methods on
Dr. Monica Echeverry-Rendon participated in the kick-off meeting for the DIGIMATER-CM project hosted at IMDEA Materials Institute.
BCD research group has recently published a new publication in Biomaterials Advances! Congrats to our colleagues, Oscar, Jesus and Monica! Title: Effect of surface modification methods on 3D-printed NiTi alloys
Dr. Jesús Ordoño, Guillermo Domínguez and Nafiseh Mollaei from BCD group gave three talks in the Winter Metals Meeting 2025 at IMDEA Materials Institute. ¨Effect of surface modification methods on
Dr. Monica Echeverry-Rendon participated in the kick-off meeting for the DIGIMATER-CM project hosted at IMDEA Materials Institute.
Jesús Ordoño, Monsur Islam, Andrés Díaz Lantad, Mónica Echeverry-Rendón and De-Yi Wang, Biomaterials Science, 2025
Yu-Yao Liu, Mónica Echeverry-Rendón , Next Materials, 2025,100647
O. Contreras-Almengor, J. Ordoño, M. Li , E. Matykina, M. Avella, M. Echeverry-Rendón, A. Diaz-Lantada, J.M. Molina-Aldareguia, Biomaterials Advances, 214281, 2025
