Wendy Le Mouëllic, finalist in the “Ma thèse en 180 secondes” competition
“Ma thèse en 180 secondes” enables doctoral students to present their research topic, in French and in simple terms, to a lay and diverse audience. In three minutes, each student must give a clear, concise yet convincing presentation of his or her research project. All with the help of a single slide!
The competition is inspired by Three minute thesis (3MT®), developed at the University of Queensland in Australia.
The concept was taken up in Quebec in 2012 by the Association francophone pour le savoir (Acfas), which wanted to extend the project to all French-speaking countries.
As part of the 11th edition of the competition, Wendy Le Mouëllic, doctoral student at the IPBS, won the regional final, taking 2nd prize from the jury and the public prize. Wendy went on to win the national semi-final, held in Paris on 29 March, and will now go on to compete in the final, to be held in Nice on 5 June.
As a member of the “Interactions of mycobacteria with host cells” team headed by Olivier Neyrolles, Wendy works on the links between virulence and metabolism in the tuberculosis bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In particular, she is seeking to understand how the bacillus acquires sulfur, an essential element for its growth, and how these sulfur sources enable it to resist the various stresses encountered during infection, in particular hypoxia and oxidative stress. The aim of this work is to identify new points of vulnerability in the bacillus, which could be exploited for the development of new drugs.