Chemistry Ph.D. candidate wins CSE Three Minute Thesis
Sidharth Panda is working on a targeted mRNA delivery system to treat genetic disorders
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (11/12/2024) — University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (CSE) Ph.D. candidate Sidharth Panda won the 2024 CSE Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition for the presentation, "Fixing Genes with mRNA Packages." Panda will advance to the Universitywide competition on Friday, Nov. 15.
The 3MT is a research communication competition that challenges students to communicate the significance of their projects with just one slide without the use of props or industry jargon—in just three minutes.
Panda is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Chemistry. His thesis develops a targeted mRNA delivery system to treat genetic disorders at their source. This work is a significant step toward more effective genetic therapies.
When searching for an area of chemistry to specialize in, he ran across gene therapy and the research became personal.
“I joined this lab where they did gene delivery, which was interesting to me because the goal of the lab was to use genetic material to treat cancer,” said Panda. “I have a lot of family members who have a cancer history, which was a big motivating factor in pursuing this research.”
Panda continues to work on designing a new delivery system to treat cancer. After starting his Ph.D. studies, Panda was diagnosed as a carrier of thalassemia, an inherited blood disorder that causes the body to have less hemoglobin than normal.
“That's the motivation for me now, to see if we can deliver something therapeutically relevant that hopefully in the future can help cure diseases of genetic disorders,” Panda added.
The CSE 3MT second place award went to biomedical engineering Ph.D. student and Wilfred Wetzel Fellowship and Bakken Scholarship recipient Melissa Walsh for "Engineering TriKEs Against Cancer," and the presentation "Breaking Barriers: Equity in Risk Prediction" by Nicole Kleman, a Ph.D. student in bioinformatics and computational biology, received the People's Choice Award.
To see all of the CSE 3MT presentations, visit the 2024 CSE Three Minute Thesis playlist on Youtube.
For more information, visit the University Grad School's Three-Minute Thesis webpage.
If you'd like to support students through scholarships and fellowships, visit the CSE giving website.