Congratulations to Olaya Lara and Maximillian Weil. In the final round of our yearly pitch competition event, their three-minute presentation convinced the audience and the jury, respectively. We suspect that there were quite a few soccer fans and music lovers amongst the public.
Unlike last year’s edition the voting results clearly indicated one winner: Olaya Lara, PhD candidate from the Laboratory of Neuro-Aging & Viro-Immunotherapy (NAVI) research group. In her presentation entitled “Putting xCT offside to tackle pancreatic cancer from different angles”, Olaya played with a soccer metaphor. She talked about supporters and opponents, captain and team players, in order to explain her research on xCT, a protein that is present in tumor, immune and brain cells. “In the beginning it seemed almost impossible to explain my complex research in a simple yet fascinating way”, states Olaya. “During the Doctoral Derby trajectory, however, we were trained step by step. When I look back at it, I see how much I improved in many distinct aspects.”