The National Final of the FameLab 2021, the international science communication competition, was hosted by TU/e, on Tuesday June 1st 2021. The FameLab competition offers an international and unique platform to young researchers (between 21 and 40) to inspire and stimulate a large audience on a scientific topic of their choice. Contestants presented a 3-minute pitch video (slides are not allowed!) on a scientific topic of their choice, after which they answer questions from a jury.
The winner of the audience award was Mohammad Jouybar, PhD student at Eindhoven University of Technology, and also winner of the audience award at the FameLab TU/e heat. JouyBar talked about his research to develop so-called organs-on-a-chip. These artificial organs made of silicon rubber mimic the human organ microenvironment and pave the way for cheap and faster clinical testing of drugs, for instance for Covid-19. You can watch Mohammad’s pitch here. He is currently working on a ‘Cancer metastasis-on-a-chip’ project under supervision of Prof. den Toonder at Microsystems section in TU/e.
10 winners from the heats at Dutch universities (TU/e, WUR, UTwente, Amsterdam UMC) participated in the National Final. The jury team consisted of researchers and science communicators: Liza Cornet (Winner Famelab National 2020), Prof. R. Bansal (UTwente), Jim Jansen (editor-in-chief of science magazine New Scientist), and C. van Heerwaarden (WUR). The winner of the Dutch National Final will go on to represent the Netherlands in the online International Final as part of the Cheltenham Science Festival.
