The National Heart and Lung Institute pit its scientists and their research against the rest of the College in the annual 3 minute thesis competition.

As a non-practicing scientist, I appreciate when opportunities arise in my current role to peak through the curtains of the laboratory doors, I think I’m mixing my metaphors? Anyway…I had the opportunity to go along and watch the 2018 Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition. 3MT is a research communication competition developed by The University of Queensland and organised at Imperial College London by the Graduate School. I didn’t know what to expect from the talks, I was pleasantly surprised! In the three short minutes available, I felt I became an expert in topics ranging from rice avalanches, charcoal vs coal, permeable concrete and wearable circuits for sweat analysis!

This year NHLI had two competitors entered into the 3MT competition, James Bolaji and Patricia Ogger.

James Bolaji graduated from King’s College London in 2015 with a 1st class degree in Pharmacology (Hons). He began a PhD in the Respiratory Pharmacology group of the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), supervised by Professor Maria Belvisi, Professor Terry Tetley and Dr Mark Birrell. His PhD research focusses on the role of environmental contaminants such as cleaning products, plastics and biodiesel as asthma triggers.

James commented on his experience “The 3-minute thesis was a great opportunity for me as a final year student to present my research to scientists that were not familiar with my field! It was also great to gather all my ideas together and highlight the salient points – which has been very useful as I’ve started writing my thesis. The competitors this year were great and the advice I would give for the future competitors would be to really try to 'sell' your research. You are probably very passionate about your research, so now you need to convince others why they should be as passionate as you!”.

Patricia Ogger won the Darwin prize for best undergraduate thesis in Biology in the Netherlands in 2016, having obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology from the newly founded Maastricht Science College in the Netherlands. She was offered a fellowship of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, and moved to London to pursue a Research Master in Biomedical Research from Imperial College London. Patricia currently holds a PhD scholarship of the National Heart and Lung Institute, investigating how metabolic reprogramming of airway macrophages contributes to interstitial lung disease. She is supervised by Dr Adam Byrne, Professor Clare Lloyd and Professor Toby Maher.

Patricia commented “The 3 Minute Thesis was a great experience as it allowed me to put my research into a wider context than I do on a day-to-day basis and to present it to a large audience. It was challenging to shrink two years of research into three minutes and one PowerPoint slide, but good fun and definitely good practice. It was also a good opportunity to see what other PhD students – Imperial wide – are working on, as usually there isn’t much contact between departments. Tips for future competitors: make your research easily accessible to a wide audience and explain everything very well. Especially focus on the impact of your research”.

And the winners are...

It was a very interesting afternoon, and the standard of some competitors was exceptional! I’d like to congratulate James and Patricia for their efforts. I thought they both did very well and can be proud of their performances. Along with the classical presentations, it was especially fascinating to witness the different performance styles used. From storytelling, where we the audience find ourselves drawn into the world as described by the student, to feeling like I was at my first TEDx talk! To find out more about all of the competitors, see their slides and learn about their research interests you can view a copy of the programme.

The overall winner was awarded to Paulina Rowinska from the CDT Maths of Planet Earth programme for her talk entitled ‘Winds of Change’. Second place was awarded to Maria Lucey from the Department of Medicine, for her talk entitled ‘Food for Thought: Inhibiting Appetite with Prokineticin’. Third place was awarded to Hannah Maude, also from the Department of Medicine for her talk ‘Genomics of Common Disease’. Finally, the ‘People’s Choice Award’ went to Matt Douthwaite from the  Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering for his talk about ‘Wearable Integrated Circuits for Sweat Analysis’.

I’d like to thank the Graduate School for organising the competition and this year's host Professor Tom Welton for keeping us entertained between talks. I am eagerly awaiting the 2019 3MT competition!