Two NARILIS PhD students nominated to represent the UNamur at the Belgian interuniversity final of "Ma thèse en 180 secondes"

The competition “Ma thèse en 180 secondes” is intended to increase public awareness about the diversity and value of scientific research and discovery, while developing communication skills of PhD students to communicate science to the general public. The challenge is to deliver, in just 180 seconds, a good and convincing popular science presentation on their doctoral research topic and with the support of one single slide!

Each year, the competition takes place in the six universities of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles: UCLouvain, ULB, ULiège, UMONS, UNamur and USL-B. On March 24, eight PhD students from the UNamur participated to the first selection round which was held online (https://www.sciences.be/events/mt180-namur/). François-Xavier Stubbe and Jérémy Verbeke, the two candidates selected by the jury for the next stage of the competition, are researchers from the NARILIS institute! François-Xavier and Jérémy will represent the UNamur at the interuniversity final on June 3 in Liège.

François-Xavier Stubbe convinced the jury with his pitch entitled “Les photocopieuses du vivant”. François-Xavier is a PhD fellow within the team of Dr. Damien Hermand (UNamur, URPhyM, Laboratory of Molecular Genetics (GeMo)). His doctoral research aims at deciphering the transcriptional control of a developmental transition in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Jérémy Verbeke impressed the jury with his talk “Quand la Maléfique Brucella rencontre sa cousine la Fée Mitochondrie”. Jérémy works as a PhD student within the teams of Prof. Thierry Arnould (UNamur, URBC) and Prof. Xavier De Bolle (UNamur, URBM), where he studies the mechanisms leading to mitochondrial fragmentation in Brucella-infected cells.

Discover also the communications from two other NARILIS PhD students, who also participated at "Ma thèse en 180 secondes": Caroline Servais with "Désarmer le dernier rempart de Brucella") and Emeline Barbieux with "Un vaccin efficace pour Ginette". These two researchers are conducting a PhD thesis devoted to the study of Brucella cell cycle and infection under the direction of Prof. Xavier De Bolle (UNamur, URBM).