2018
Winner –Jonnel Anthony Jaurigue
Can you describe your entire thesis in three minutes or less? That is the challenge set by the MPIKG Presentation competition. And so I competed in my third year, having started in 2015 in the Biomolecular Systems department under the leadership of Prof. Peter H. Seeberger. And in three minutes I described my thesis project as best I could…
The vision of my project is about developing a malaria vaccine. We use rationally designed synthetic carbohydrates as the vaccine antigen. And we evaluate how these synthetic carbohydrate antigens are recognised by our immune systems and potentially protect against malarial disease.
Seemed simple enough. But let me stress that preparing a single-slide, three minute presentation was just as much effort as any 30 minute presentation. You will be forced to take on the core aspects of your thesis and really focus your presentation and perspective. But I also want to stress that this time and effort is definitely worth it! Now at this time of thesis writing I can attest that focussed perspective of my project is a very useful thing to have.
I have attended many conferences in my time as a PhD student and I know the networking opportunities that come with them. I am delighted to accept the competition award, and will use it to attend a conference from biology fields that interest me as a future postdoc researcher.
Isabell Tunn
Isabell Tunn is a mechanobiologist who started her doctoral project in the group of Dr. Kerstin Blank in October 2016. Inspired by nature’s material design principles, she develops tunable self-healing mateirals for cell culture applications.
"It was fun for me to learn how to put my research in a nutshell"
Daniel Cruz
Daniel Cruz is currently working at Colloids Department under supervision of Prof. Antonietti focusing his research on application of new polymers for design interfaces to transport electrons in solar cells devices based in perovskite. Previously he was explored the process to formed kesterite thin films for solar cells at Hemholtz Zentrum Berlin during his master thesis.
"During my 3 min talk experience I learned about of how can I transmit concepts with low dispersions of ideas and easily understandable. This actually is a challenge in the science world due to high specialization and tricky technicalities."