Perfecting the Pitch
School of Medicine postdocs and graduate students present their research in mini speeches at Grad SLAM and Postdoc PITCH
UC San Diego School of Medicine was well represented at this year’s Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) Grad SLAM and inaugural Postdoc PITCH, held on April 9, 2025. The annual competitive public speaking event gives researchers the chance to showcase the impact of their research in digestible terms to audiences of laypeople. Five School of Medicine postdoctoral fellows and one Ph.D. student contestant made a strong impression through three-minute pitches in front of a live audience of community members and panel of judges.
Learn more about these talented researchers and their efforts to break barriers and change the world.
Postdoc PITCH
First Place
Aalok Varma, Ph.D., Department of Neurosciences
“Ancient Octopus Viruses: On the EVE of Discovery”
Researching endogenous viral elements, or EVEs, found within ancient octopuses, Varma’s work highlights the potential for applying these segments of viral genetic material for advancing gene therapy techniques to aid in the cure of genetic disorders.
Second Place
Natasha Anita, Ph.D., Department of Neurosciences
“An Ounce of Prevention: Repurposing Diabetes Drugs to Outsmart Alzheimer’s”
Using the Benjamin Franklin quote, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, Anita proposes repurposing diabetes medications to prevent Alzheimer's disease, which has a similar insulin resistance issue in the brain leading to cognitive impairment with age.
Third Place
Karina Cunha e Rocha, Ph.D., Department of Medicine
“Fake News as a Therapeutic Strategy”
Healthy cells send “good” messages throughout the body that support other cells, while unhealthy cells send “bad” messages that in turn negatively influence other cells. To treat insulin resistance, Cunha e Rocha proposes focusing on the method of manipulating unhealthy cells to send “good” messages within the cells to “trick” the cells into treating insulin resistance.
Jiyo Athertya, Ph.D., Department of Radiology
“Making the Invisible Visible”
Athertya’s research focuses on myelin signals, the hard-to-catch, “shooting star”-esque signals that are the first sign of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis. By using new techniques in brain MRIs, she aims to take these hard-to-catch signals from invisible to visible to diagnose and treat diseases.
Gosia Murawska, Ph.D., Department of Pharmacology
“You Are What You Eat”
Murawska compares our body to a factory, each with different cells within with unique functions, but with the unifying structure of cell membranes, which allow the cell to control the movement of molecules. She discusses how the foods we eat are turned into pro-inflammatory omega-6 or anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids which help our immune response. The balance between those two directly translates into our body's ability to fight the infections rather than go on unstoppable until turns into pathological disorder.
GradSLAM
Consuelo Sauceda, Biomedical Sciences graduate student
“Human Gut Microbiome: The Coral Reefs Within Us”
Using the coral reefs as an example, Sauceda’s research compares coral bleaching to an inflamed gut ecosystem with inflammatory and bowel disease (IBD) and provides the solution of testing human feces to identify biomarkers in humans suffering from IBD to increase biodiversity to nurture the biodiversity within our guts.
— Melinda Sevilla
Social Media Strategist, UC San Diego School of Medicine