Big ideas, tiny timeframe: Meet the ANU three-minute thesis competitors

If writing your entire doctoral thesis isn’t hard enough, just try explaining it. In three minutes. 

This is the challenge ANU PhD students took on at the 2024 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) final at The Australian National University (ANU). 

Born out of the University of Queensland in 2008, the annual competition assists PhD students in developing their presentation and communication skills – challenging them to distil their complex work to non-experts in only 180 seconds. 

Sasanan Trakansuebkul from the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) took home the top gong, winning $4,000 for her stellar presentation. She competed against nine other finalists across ANU to advance to the Asia-Pacific Semi-Final Showcase.

Trakansuebkul’s research identifies the differences between mRNA and cryptic unstable transcripts and explores how they can be deployed to develop therapies for a range of diseases, including cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.  

In her presentation, Trakansuebkul, who is from the JCSMR Fischer Group, compared her research to her grandmother’s failsafe fried rice recipe. 

“Our DNA is like a cookbook, and our mRNA the recipe; the resulting dish being the protein,” she says.  

Much like when you’re in the kitchen, mistakes can be made when hand-copying a recipe.

By analysing both mRNA and cryptic unstable transcripts, Trakansuebkul can stick specific features of the cryptic unstable transcripts onto the mRNA causing disease, tricking our cells and potentially saving lives in the process.

Another JCSMR PhD student, Rakshanya Sekar, was awarded second place for her research presentation into novel treatments for restoring blindness caused by age-related macular degeneration (AMD).  

Her exploration into the extracellular vesicles found throughout our bodies uncovered their ability to mend communication networks, reduce cell death and slow down the progression of vision loss caused by AMD.  

The People’s Choice Award was narrowly won by Richard Zhang from the ANU College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics (CECC).  

Passionate about finding solutions for the current climate crisis, Zhang created the Carbon Knight – a superhero that captures the invisible carbon dioxide molecules causing global warming.

Zhang was inspired by the high-efficiency of red blood cells and recreated their large surface area-to-volume ratio. Here, Zhang was able to improve the Knight’s carbon capturing efficiency and moving one step closer to effectively fighting climate change. 

Trakansuebkul will participate in the Asia-Pacific 3MT Semi-Final Showcase virtually on 8 October against a range of competitors across the region, hoping to secure a spot in the final.

May the best three minutes win.