Each year, UNC graduate students have the opportunity to compete in the 3 Minute Thesis academic competition to enhance presentation and communication skills. Odessa Goudy, a PhD student in the Biochemistry and Biophysics department and trainee in the Molecular and Cellular Biophysics program working with Brian Kuhlman, is a top 10 finalist in this year’s competition. Odessa describes her participation:
“Earlier this month I entered UNC’s 3 Minute Thesis competition which focuses on effective science communication, which is one of my personal scientific goals. If you haven’t heard about the 3 Minute Thesis before, participants have just three minutes to explain the breadth and significance of their research project to a non-specialist audience. I recently found out that I was one of this year’s ten 3 Minute Thesis finalists at UNC. There will be a livestreamed 3 Minute Thesis viewing event next Wednesday, October 21st, at 7pm! Awards go to first and second place and people’s choice!
The overall goal of my project is to create safer cancer therapeutics. To accomplish this, I plan to design a three-component drug that is converted to its active state only once it has reached the tumor microenvironment. Such tumor-targeted approaches should decrease the toxic side effects of many cancer therapy drugs. As a graduate student in the Kuhlman Lab, most of my research project focuses on designing an inhibitory domain using Rosetta (a computational design software suite).”
Tune in to view the final competition LIVE on October 21, 2020 at 7:00pm!
