Winner of UQ's 3MT final announced

University of Queensland PhD student Amanda Pearce of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) will represent UQ at the 3MT Trans-Tasman Final on October 11, 2012 after winning the UQ Final yesterday.

In a tightly fought contest, Ms Pearce edged out runner-up Ms Wen Wu from the School of Psychology, while the attending audience voted Mr Wilko Duprez of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience as the ‘People’s Choice’ winner.

First developed by the UQ Graduate School in 2008, 3MT challenges research higher degree students to communicate the significance of their projects to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes.

Judges noted that Ms Pearce’s presentation, ‘Prostate cancer – “Probing” for a solution’ successfully communicated a complex subject in a manner the audience could easily understand.

Ms Pearce, of Chapel Hill in Brisbane and formerly of Dalby, said her extensive preparation prior to 3MT paid dividends during the final.

“I was pretty nervous as expected, but as soon as I was up on stage I was confident as I had rehearsed the speech many times,” Ms Pearce said, adding that her presentation will not change for the Trans-Tasman Final.

“I will be keeping it as it is, it has worked well so far. There is not much value in changing something that already works, so I will take a couple of weeks off and then practice it again in the lead-up to the Trans-Tasman.”

As the winner of the 3MT UQ Final, Ms Pearce was awarded a $5,000 travel grant and will take her place among competitors from more than 40 universities across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the South Pacific in the Trans-Tasman Final.

Currently in the first year of her PhD studies, Ms Pearce said she was fortunate to be part of an outstanding research team at AIBN.

“I have had a really good experience here. I did my honours here in the same group and on the same project and I was fortunate that I could stay with them and do my PhD,” she said.

“I am looking at developing a polymer system that can diagnose and treat prostate cancer.

“Using hyperbranched polymers allows me to do three things: detect prostate cancer cells, introduce an imaging agent that will show up tumours in MRI scans and deliver chemotherapy medicines to kill tumours without targeting healthy cells.”

The 3MT Trans-Tasman Semi Final and Final will be hosted by UQ at the Queensland Brain Institute Auditorium on October 11, 2012. Attendance at the Semi Final is via registration here.

For more information about 3MT, please click here.

Media: Mark Schroder, UQ Graduate School Marketing & Communications, 07 3346 0509 or m.schroder@uq.edu.au