You’ve got three minutes… Talk about your years of research

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This article was published 18/02/2015 (4218 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Robin Visser can explain in three minutes how a deadly lung disorder that dooms dozens of newborn babies worldwide each day can someday be cured.

In three minutes? In language laypeople can understand? Seriously?

Indeed, seriously. You say “no way,” but Visser says “way.”

So do 11 other of the top graduate students at the University of Manitoba, who’ll compete Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. at St. John’s College in the Three-Minute Thesis. The competition challenges master’s and doctoral students to summarize years of research into three minutes — in words any of us can understand.

Visser is from Ontario, doing her residency here while pursuing a master’s degree in surgery — her thesis examining a possible way to overcome congenital diaphragmatic hernia.

Whoops, let’s try again, in plain English.

“As parents, you will never forget your child’s first cry on the day they were born — unless they didn’t cry at all,” Visser explained Tuesday in a practice run.

CDH affects the baby’s lungs, leaving the child too small and very stiff, she said. The research she’s undertaking with lab mice could lead to clinical trials that could lead to ways to catch those problems in the womb and enlarge the baby’s lungs before birth.

Then there’s biosystems engineering master’s candidate Garret Munch, who declared: “Biofuels are cool — my favourite is biodiesel.”

Alas, biofuels produce waste products that can be difficult with which to deal.

But — there has to be a “but” requiring research — River East Collegiate grad Munch believes there’s a way those waste products can be used to grow yeast and be turned back into more biofuels. To find out how, you’ll have to attend the 3MT finals.

Meanwhile, “I’d like you all to think about how you got to school today,” began Gail Ferguson, pursuing a master’s degree in natural resource management.

Almost every transportation method, even the green ones, involved some use of mined metal, a $1.3-billion annual industry in Manitoba, most of that affecting indigenous lands.

“There is a lack of clarity on land use and jurisdiction,” said Ferguson, who graduated in environmental studies and geology at Binghamton University in New York, then came here to join her fiancé.

“Recognizing aboriginal rights may have an impact on the business world,” she said. “Think how you would feel if you saw a stranger in your backyard… the stranger might have a work permit.”

Ever heard of Kurdistan? How about Balochistan?

The latter is in southern Iran, and its people are a minority discriminated against in their own country, suffering just as the Kurds do, but without international attention, said Gelareh Manghebati.

“Everyone knows the Kurdish people, no one has heard about Balochistan,” said Manghebati, who came to Canada from Iran in 2007 and is doing her master’s degree in peace and conflict-resolution studies.

“Nothing breaks my heart like ethnic conflict — the same diversity celebrated here, kills there,” she said.

Manghebati’s research is examining the link inequality, discrimination and uneven distribution of wealth have on creating a terrorist from a person who “can’t be born evil… doesn’t have a different DNA than other people.”

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Finalists (in no particular order)

Dustin Scott Kehler

Applied Health Sciences (Doctoral)

Advisor: Dr. Todd Duhamel

Is Exercise Healthy for Older Adults before Surgery? The Exercise PREHAB Study

 

Gail Ferguson

Natural Resources Institute (Master’s)

Advisor: Prof. Thomas Henley

Whose backyard is it anyway? Aboriginal, government and mining industry relationships

 

Garret Munch

Biosystems Engineering (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Nazim Cicek

Putting Waste to Work: Producing Biodiesel using Yeast and Industrial Wastes

 

Robin Visser

Department of General Surgery (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Richard Keijzer

miRacles for Babies with Abnormal Lungs

 

Aibek Samakov

Natural Resources Institute (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Fikret Berkes

Sacred Sites: Conservation of Nature through Mechanisms Rooted in Culture

 

Robert Bertrand

Chemistry (Doctoral)

Advisor: Dr. John Sorenson

Exploring the Treasure Trove of Lichen Natural Molecules

 

Steven Harms

Civil Engineering (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. James Blatz

Temporary Flood Protection: Developing New Ways to Protect our Communities

 

Teresa Looy

Natural Resources Institute (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. John Sinclair

The Tomatoes Taste Better: Adult Learning Outcomes through Participation in Community Gardening

 

Gelareh Manghebati

Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Sean Byrne

The Role of Financial and Social Inequality in Terrorist Activities in Iranian Balochistan

 

Rebecca (DeLong) Dielschneider

Immunology (Doctoral)

Advisor: Dr. Spencer Gibson

Lysosomes as Targets in Leukemia

 

Vanessa Palmer

Biomedical Engineering (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Melanie Martin

Improving the Outcome of MS using MR

 

Diego Rodriguez Herrera

Physics and Astronomy (Master’s)

Advisor: Dr. Stephen Pistorius

Using Radio Waves for Breast Cancer Detection