Three-Minute Talks: A Succinct Showcase of Science

Annual Competition Tests Researchers’ Communication Skills

By Brandon Levy

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Everyone recognizes that science can’t just stay in the lab — it can only do good if it finds applications out in the wider world, whether that’s in the form of new technologies, new medical treatments, or a change in public policy. However, the importance of getting scientists out of the lab to engage with the public has been emphasized much less until recently. One of NIH’s approaches to solving that problem is its annual Three-Minute Talks (TmT) competition, which encourages NIH postbaccalaureate fellows, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows to figure out a way to succinctly explain their research to people who may know nothing at all about what they do.

A dozen contestants faced off in the final round of this year’s TmT competition, which took place on June 26, and the high quality of all their presentations surely made it difficult for the judges to pick the best of the bunch. Fortunately for the event’s attendees, while the judges deliberated, IRP associate investigator Chris Gunter, Ph.D., gave a presentation about the current environment surrounding science communications. As Senior Advisor for Genomics Engagement for the Director of NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the chair of NIH’s Science of Science Communication Scientific Interest Group, the topic was right up her alley.

Perhaps to the surprise of many in the audience, Dr. Gunter’s presentation was mostly good news. She pointed out that a 2024 Pew Research poll showed that 76 percent of respondents said they have a great or fair amount of confidence in scientists.

“You might feel like scientists are under attack, but that’s not what the data show,” Dr. Gunter said during her talk.

However, that doesn’t mean scientists can’t do better. Dr. Gunter explained that most attempts to use scientific evidence to change behavior rely on the ‘deficit model’ of science communication, which suggests that giving people scientifically accurate information will lead to behavior change. That turns out not to be the case. Now that scientists can easily engage directly with the public — through social media and ‘preprint’ servers that allow scientists to publicly post unpublished drafts of scientific papers prior to peer review — Dr. Gunter encouraged her colleagues to approach science communication in the same way they approach their research: by identifying ahead of time what they want to accomplish, figuring out the best way to do so, and evaluating how their message was received afterwards.

 “We all know how to write papers, and that’s how I would encourage you to think about scientific communication in the future,” Dr. Gunter said.

After Dr. Gunter finished, the TmT judges announced the competition’s top-three winners. First place went to IRP postbaccalaureate fellow Jack Waite, who succinctly and accessibly explained his research into how our DNA moves around in our cells in order to bring different parts of a DNA strand closer together. These interactions are required to dial up and down the activity of different genes in order to get immature cells to develop into whatever sort of cell they need to become.

“My work looks at how a cell, as our bodies grow, decides to become a heart cell, a liver cell, or a neuron,” he explains. “Answering this question will be critical to both treat a wide range of developmental diseases and improve our ability to manipulate cell identity for regenerative medicine,” including potentially helping scientists figure out how to grow entirely new organs for those who need transplants.

Jack entered the TmT competition because he values “making scientific knowledge accessible to everyone,” he says, but at the same time, he knows that “accomplishing this isn’t always easy.” He saw the TmT competition as the perfect opportunity to practice that skill, and he found it to be “an incredibly helpful experience.” Not only that, but he also really enjoyed learning about the many different research projects his competitors are pursuing. 

“I’m thrilled that the judges thought my presentation was effective, but in full honesty, all of the finalists did an incredible job at explaining their research goals and findings in an effective manner,” he says. “It’s amazing to see such breadth of high-quality research here at the NIH.”

IRP postdoctoral fellow Matteo Pavan, Ph.D., earned second place honors for his talk about the possibilities of using positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) to treat the many conditions that cause or result from chronic inflammation.

“The problem with many existing anti-inflammatory drugs is that they act like sledgehammers: they hit the whole body, not just the parts that need treatment,” he explains. “That often leads to side effects that can do more harm than good.” PAMs, on the other hand, boost the anti-inflammatory signals the body is already sending rather than sending those signals to the body themselves. “Think of it like a microphone that only amplifies a speaker’s voice when they’re already speaking. That means PAMs only work where and when they’re needed, making the treatment much more targeted and less likely to cause side effects.”

When Matteo learned about the opportunity to participate in his NIH Institute’s Three-Minute Talks competition at its annual scientific conference, he was “genuinely excited by the challenge of distilling years of work into just three minutes.” And although he fell just short of the top spot in the NIH-wide TmT finals, he’s far from disappointed. 

“The level of the competition was incredibly high,” Matteo says. “Many of the participants put a lot of effort into crafting compelling narratives and refining their slides, so placing second was an unexpected and truly rewarding outcome.”

Last but not least, third place was awarded to IRP postbaccalaureate fellow Ronja Frigard, whose research aims to reduce the more than 70,000 people in the U.S. who are sickened by a tick bite each year — not to mention the pets and livestock that can also be affected. Her particular project examines a phenomenon her lab recently discovered called ‘rapid tick removal.’ In this process, the immune system and nervous system somehow work together so that an animal that has been previously bitten by a tick removes it via scratching much more quickly than an animal that has not been bitten by a tick before. Ronja and her colleagues want to understand how that process works.

“By studying the site of a tick bite at the cellular level, we can learn about the mechanisms that protect us from disease transmission, and we hope to use what we learn in developing drugs to assist in tick-borne disease prevention in the future,” she explains.

Ronja says NIH’s TmT competition provides “a showcase of excellent examples” for how scientists can share their work with the public, which she believes “can be as important as the work itself” and is “critical to pushing science forward.” And now that she has gotten a chance to touch the TmT winner’s podium, so to speak, she is setting her sights on next year’s competition in the hopes of breaching the top two — although she’ll be happy just to participate.

“I enjoyed the competition so much, and I was honored to place third amongst so many talented people and fascinating results,” she says. “I will definitely be competing again next year!”

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