Regina Hark wins 3MT contest
03/17/2026Explaining your research in three minutes so that everyone understands it: That's what the 3-minute thesis competition is all about. Regina Hark won the local competition at the University of Würzburg.
Regina Hark is a doctoral student at the Institute of Clinical Genetics and Genomedicine. She is investigating hypophosphatasia, a rare genetic disease of the bones. Recent studies have shown that patients also exhibit increased psychological symptoms such as depression.
"I am therefore investigating the possible effects of hypophospatasia on the nervous system, using the zebrafish as a model organism. I have already been able to establish that the zebrafish in which I have genetically modelled the disease behave differently and have a different neuronal network in the brain," says the biologist.
She explained the topic of her thesis so well at the local Würzburg competition "3 Minute Thesis" (3MT) that the jury chose her as the winner. Regina Hark thus received a prize of 300 euros donated by the Universitätsbund Würzburg.
What's next for the winner
Next, a video of Regina Hark's presentation will be sent to the COIMBRA group - a European university network to which JMU belongs and which organises a Europe-wide 3MT competition. According to the ESC system, all participating universities can then vote online for the best presentation - but not for their own.
The three speakers who receive the highest marks from the 42 member universities of the COIMBRA group will then be allowed to travel to Granada (Spain). The COIMBRA annual conference and the 3MT final will take place there from 16 to 19 June 2026. The winner will receive prize money of 2,000 euros.
Three more doctoral students honoured
Around 100 spectators attended the Würzburg local competition on 6 March 2026 in the Graduate School building on the North Campus. They listened to presentations by 14 doctoral students from a wide range of disciplines.
In addition to the winner, the jury honoured two other researchers; a third received the audience award:
- Viola Lalomia with the topic "When No Difference Makes a Difference: Switching Off Rare Cancers"
- Dorothee Haas with the topic "Tumour-Inspired Strategy to Improve CAR-T Cell Therapy by Autophagy Restoration"
- Audience award for Hsuan-Ai Chen with the topic "The Origami of Life: How Folding Turns RNA into a Molecular Machine"
Workshops for preparation
The 3MT competition is about communicating scientific content in English in a clear, concise and understandable way - a skill that is becoming increasingly important in research, teaching and science communication.
The Würzburg 3MT is organised by the JMU Graduate Academy under Managing Director Dr Natalie Rauscher and Krischan Brandl from Professional Development.
The organisation team had arranged two workshops for the participants to prepare for the preliminary round, in which the presentations were developed and tested step by step.
This paid off: "All participants improved enormously between the first training session in December and the preliminary round," says Krischan Brandl. In the end, the presentations were at a level that was understandable for all those present, most of whom had no previous experience of the topics.
