Claire Radtke, a fifth-year doctoral student in the Department of Biological Sciences, recently won the fourth annual Graduate/Medical Student and Postdoc Communication Competition at the Wisconsin BioForward Annual Summit in October.
BioForward is Wisconsin’s collective voice for promoting biohealth initiatives through advocacy, talent development and partnerships that strengthen long-term impacts on the biohealth industry and research institutions. The BioForward competition challenged competitors to create a three-minute video explaining their research to non-scientific audiences in a simple, interesting, and relevant manner. The top five finalists were then required to present their research live at the BioForward summit on Tuesday, Oct. 29. Radtke’s video on her research of protein aggregates came in first place at the final competition.
Radtke works in the lab of Dr. Anita Manogaran, associate professor of biological sciences, researching how cells handle protein aggregates associated with fatal diseases such as Transthyretin amyloidosis — a disease which occurs when the tissues and cells in the body accumulate abnormal protein deposits.
Radtke has been fascinated with protein aggregates since learning about them in an undergraduate biochemistry class.
“The fact that proteins can go bad and cause some of these fatal diseases fascinated me, it struck me and just kind of stayed with me,” Radtke said. “When I was looking for graduate schools to apply to, I looked for a lab where I could do that type of research and could continue to investigate this topic. I saw that Dr. Manogaran is interested in this same phenomenon, so it motivated me to apply to Marquette.”
Manogaran is Radtke’s dissertation advisor and principal investigator on her research. Radtke sees Manogaran as a mentor who is supportive of her taking time away from her research to pursue outside interests such as the BioForward communication competition.
“I saw a post come through the Graduate School news that the competition was going on,” Radtke said. “I am passionate about my research and am always excited to talk about it. I enjoy the communication piece. I’ve competed in similar competitions, so I just went for it.”
The BioForward communication competition was Radtke’s third science communication competition. In 2022, Radtke won Marquette’s Three-Minute Thesis Competition, and in 2023 she competed in the Science Coalition’s Fund it Forward Challenge, taking third place.
She encourages graduate students to sign up and participate, stating, “I think a lot of people forget, including myself, how you can be involved in science in so many different ways. It’s not necessarily just doing research in a lab. My advice is, first, if you’re interested, just take the leap and sign up. And second, I think a lot of people underestimate how simple you have to make your research for a general audience. We as scientists have a tendency to be really excited about the details of our work, which is important, but you have to simplify it.”
The competitions Radtke has competed and those like it stress the importance of scientists being able to clearly communicate the importance of their research to non-specialized audiences as a way to raise awareness of issues, improve scientific research, advocate for change and build trust with the public.
Radtke shared that Manogaran’s advice to all her students presenting is to explain their work in the context of “Why would your grandma care?” Radtke chuckled and said she likes that tip, often using analogies to simplify concepts when explaining her research to others.
When she isn’t studying and researching at Marquette, Radtke’s love for competition is expressed in her passion for playing basketball, volleyball and wheelchair basketball in Milwaukee recreational leagues. She is also teaching herself Spanish in her free time.
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