Communicating Your Research


In 2014, Anthony Prosser (Chemistry) entered the Three-Minute Thesis (or 3MT) competition at Emory and lost. Not one to give up, Prosser continued to hone his communication skills and re-entered the competition in 2015. Victory was his!

Anthony Prosser works in a laboratory

Prosser’s research is focused on HIV, and the implications of his work could change drug therapy’s relationship to HIV treatment. “Current HIV regimens require at least three antiviral drugs to arrest ongoing viral replication and restore immune function. Unfortunately these so-called drug cocktails come with significant financial burden, a continually emerging set of long term side effects, and the potential for resistance if not taken as prescribed. My project focuses on targeting the two GPCR’s (CXCR4 and CCR5) that HIV uses to enter cells. By targeting these human proteins, we significantly decrease the chance of viral resistance, and potentially decrease the number of drugs required for HIV treatment.”

The Laney Advantage

In 2014 and 2015, Prosser competed in 3MT at Emory, a competition that challenges students to explain their research to a non-specialist audience in three minutes or less. To Prosser, the decision to enter the competition — not once, but twice — was a no-brainer. “Oral communication has always been a passion for me, so the 3MT competition was an obvious route to help me to learn more about conveying science to a broad audience.” Though he did not win in 2014, the loss inspired him to build on what he had started. “Though no one is ever happy to lose a competition, I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity because it gave me a lot of useful ideas I could apply to my own speaking. In the rest of that year, I won communication prizes at the AAAS and HIV-DART meetings. In 2015, I entered to compete in 3MT again and was far more prepared and won the speaking competition.”

Beyond Laney, Prosser would like to explore patent law, noting that his training at Emory, including his 3MT experience, will make a difference. “I believe the training that LGS and Emory have provided me in drug discovery and communication will help me make a difference in that field. The legal environment around intellectual property is constantly evolving, and sometimes useful medications and treatments don’t make it to the public because of miss-steps that could easily be prevented!”