Three minutes and one slide were all it took for twelve young scientists to turn cutting-edge research into dramatic stories of hope at Weill Cornell Medicine’s tenth annual Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition on Nov. 13 in Uris Auditorium. The night showcased bold ideas about tackling Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and infectious diseases with creativity and passion.
Students from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Rockefeller University participated in the competition, which challenged the young scientists to trim the scientific jargon and make their projects accessible to a broad audience. Originally founded at the University of Queensland, Australia, it provides an opportunity for doctoral students to develop and showcase their research communication skills and has since spread globally.
“We had an enormous turnout this year—the audience exceeded the capacity of Uris Auditorium for the first time. It was fantastic to see the great support for our student presenters,” said Dr. Aubrey DeCarlo, associate director of career and professional development at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. “The sense of community in the room made our team feel so proud!”
A panel of judges representing all three institutions and former winners of 3MT, evaluated the presentations for accessibility and accuracy. The top three presenters and a special audience-choice awardee each received a $500 grant.
Overcharging Cancer: Turning a Metabolic Advantage into a Weakness
First place winner Ziqi (Christine) Yu, a third-year PhD student in the pharmacology program at Weill Cornell Medicine, opened her talk with a vivid image: “Imagine every cell as a rechargeable battery. What if some of those cells received a secret upgrade, a chip that allows them to charge faster, run longer and stronger?”
Yu conducts her research in Dr. Andrew Intlekofer’s laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, focusing on cancers such as leukemia and glioma that carry mutations in an important enzyme in the TCA cycle, which releases the energy stored in nutrients. Mutations in the enzyme isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) behave like a special chip inside the cell, driving the production of a molecule called R-2-HG that rewires cellular metabolism and ultimately contributes to cancer progression.
Traditional treatments that block mutant IDH with inhibitors have shown limited responses in patients with IDH-related cancers. Yu’s project takes an unconventional approach. “Instead of unplugging the cancer’s power source, we can drive it to burn itself out, because sometimes the key to defeating a powerful system is not to shut it down, but to let it destroy itself.”
Her work shows that forcing these cells to further ramp up the mutant pathway overwhelms their metabolism, damages their mitochondria and selectively causes the IDH mutant cancer cells to collapse under stress. This strategy could open the door to therapies that make cancer self-destruct by exploiting its own metabolic weakness.
“I really enjoyed the process of turning something complex into a story that a broad audience could follow,” said Yu about the competition. “I was pushed to identify the most important concepts, findings and significance of my project and present them in a clear and engaging way.”
All Roads Lead to Replication: Leveraging Heterogeneity to Uncover Cell Cycle Plasticity
Samsara Upadhya, a sixth-year graduate student in the biochemistry and structural biology program at Weill Cornell Medicine, received second place for her presentation on how mammalian cells decide to proliferate or become dormant.
While there may be several ways of going to the same destination, how do you make those decisions? For instance, a person going to the Brooklyn Bridge to watch the sunset has different options of trains to take. “They can take the 6 line versus taking the Q and transferring to the J line,” she said. “Using live-cell imaging is like watching all the subway riders individually to see who takes which train.” Her research is uncovering two molecular routes that cells use to initiate DNA replication, a critical step in the cell cycle that isn’t well mapped out yet.
Working in Dr. Tobias Meyer’s lab at Weill Cornell, Upadhya has integrated live-cell fluorescence microscopy and computational analyses to demonstrate that these pathways create flexibility in how cells commit to the cell cycle. One of these routes is driven by CDC7 and CDK2 kinase activity, and another relies on CDK1, which helps explain how cells differ. That variability, or cellular heterogeneity, may contribute to drug resistance in cancer cells and highlights potential avenues for more precise therapeutic targeting.
“As basic biologists, we often get absorbed in the fine details of our research, making it difficult to see the bigger picture,” Upadhya said. “Preparing for the 3MT helped me to take a step back and reconnect with the larger purpose that drives complex fundamental biological research.”
Shutting Down Hell’s Kitchen
Third-place winner Maximilian Kümmecke, a second-year PhD student in Dr. Elizabeth Campbell’s lab at Rockefeller University, is peering inside mycobacterial cells to find clues on how to target the bacterium that causes the deadliest infectious disease in the world, tuberculosis. He compares the cell to a tiny kitchen where one molecular worker (RNA polymerase) reads the DNA to create an order, which another worker (the ribosome) “cooks up” into proteins required for the cell’s survival.
In some bacteria, these two work in the same shift, but in mycobacterial cells, it isn’t clear whether they team up or work separate shifts.
Using an imaging technique called cryo–electron tomography—essentially a CT scan of a single mycobacterial cell—Kümmecke and his colleagues can observe ribosomes inside the cell to see if they have company. Near some ribosomes, they observe a density that resembles RNA polymerase, suggesting that the two may be working in coordination. Understanding this partnership could expose new weaknesses in how the bacteria survive and potentially lead to better drugs against a disease that still kills over a million people each year.
Kümmecke says he signed up for the competition to become more comfortable presenting in front of large audiences. “I have proved to myself that I can present to more than 200 people, so I think in the future, I will no longer fear it as much. I feel the 3MT perfectly prepared me for later career stages when I will have larger presentations and higher stakes.”
Putting out the Fire: Targeting Vulnerable Neurons in Early Alzheimer's Disease
The audience voted Ester Siantoputri, a fifth-year student from Rockefeller University in the lab of Dr. Nathaniel Heintz, as the People’s Choice winner. Her presentation compared the spread of Alzheimer’s neuropathology to the spread of a forest fire—starting small but ultimately devastating. Alzheimer's disease, characterized by memory loss, thinking difficulties, and behavioral changes, affects 60 million people worldwide and doesn’t have an effective treatment.
“Forest fires are incredibly difficult to put out, but they always start with that one tree that catches fire first. And if we can find out where this tree is, we can put out the fire before it spreads,” Siantoputri explained.
In early Alzheimer's disease, the pattern of neurofibrillary tangles (tau) pathology is consistent. It begins in the hippocampus, which is the center of learning and memory, but some neuron types are more vulnerable than others in this region.
The Heintz lab uses a technique called fluorescence activated nuclear sorting to separate the vulnerable neurons from the resilient neuron types within postmortem human hippocampal tissue. "Once we have these distinct groups of neurons, we can then apply modern sequencing technologies to characterize the molecular signatures of the vulnerable neurons," she said.
Understanding this may lead to molecular pathways that can be targeted with precise treatments to prevent vulnerable neurons in the hippocampus from succumbing to Alzheimer's disease.
“As I prepared, I learned that I have incredibly supportive friends and lab members who encouraged me, wished me luck and even took time off their busy schedules to watch the presentation,” said Siantoputri. “I was very moved by that because it made me feel like I have a community that is actively rooting for me and is invested in my success.”
The organizers were excited that the 10th anniversary of the 3MT, included graduate students from Weill Cornell, Memorial Sloan Kettering and Rockefeller. “Additionally, with Rockefeller's participation, we were able to offer a science communication workshop hosted by RockEDU, and the finalists truly took this advice to heart,” said Thalyana Stathis, associate director, Office of Career and Professional Development and Office of Scientific Education and Training at Memorial Sloan Kettering. “We witnessed a great development in the participants' presentation styles and in the stories they conveyed about their research."
The winners’ presentations can be viewed at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences site.
The event was organized by Judith Farber, Operations Coordinator at the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Dr. DeCarlo and Dr. Stathis. From Rockefeller University's RockEDU Science Outreach, Dr. Jessi Hersh, program manager for student engagement, and Dr. Emily Costa, civic science associate and postdoctoral fellow, were involved in organizing and working with the students.