Two Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology graduate students, Lauren Laboissonniere and Carla Mann, were named top 10 finalists in Iowa State University Graduate College's second 3MT (Three-Minute Thesis) event. Laboissonniere and Mann were among 43 Iowa State University graduate students who competed in the event, which was held in Marston Hall in November.

In the event, students are given three minutes to present their thesis in layman's terms.

Laboissonniere's presentation title was "Identifying potential therapeutic targets for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)." Laboissonniere's major professor is Dr. Jeff Trimarchi. Her presentation focused on the collaborative work Trimarchi's lab does with the Ozdinler lab in Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Laboissonniere said, "This collaboration involves the investigation of genetic differences between motor neurons from multiple mouse models of ALS, with the hopes of identifying a potential therapeutic target for treatment of the disease."

The title of Mann's presentation was "RPIDisorder: Predicting protein intrinsic disorder improves in silico identification of RNA-protein partners." Mann's major professor is University Professor Drena Dobbs. 

"RNA-protein interactions play an important role in regulating important processes in the body," Mann said. "Determining which RNAs and which proteins interact with each other can help scientists identify new treatments for disorders caused by disruptions in those interactions (like cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and many other diseases). Experimentally determining those relationships can be expensive and time consuming, so using computers to predict interactions can save time and money. My research improves over previous prediction methods by incorporating knowledge about disordered, or highly flexible, regions in proteins."

The entire Iowa State University 3MT competition is available to view online.