Ning-Chieh (Jay) Twu’s research is complicated.
The veterinary microbiology and preventive medicine PhD research focuses on swine coronaviruses including PEDV, PHEV, and PDCoV.
“Due to some limitations of animal studies and the consideration of replacement, reduction and refinement, we began exploring an alternative cell culture model known as organoids for infection studies that could be conducted in the lab,” Jay said.
When several survey studies have identified PEDV in bats drawing attention to the possibility that these bats could be a potential reservoir of PEDV. Jay’s lab lacked the resources to conduct a bat animal study, so organoids were used in their research study.
“We successfully developed intestinal organoids from the Big Brown Bat and then infected the organoids with PEDV,” Jay said. “Our findings showed that the intestinal organoids are susceptible to PEDV, which supports the previous survey studies.”
Sounds complicated.
Now imagine boiling all that information down to three minutes in a presentation.
That’s what Jay did with his presentation, “Big Brown Bat Intestinal Organoids Support Replication of Swine Enteric Coronaviruses: Insights into the Bat-Livestock Viral Interface,” at Iowa’s State 3MT (Three-Minute Thesis) competition.
The competition’s purpose is to show research to an audience without related knowledge.
“It’s essential not to use technical words in the presentation, while maintaining the structure and story I wanted to convey,” Jay said.
His presentation included a workflow of the study with background information and the research question. He also included details of the material and methods while using a graph to illustrate key points. Critical images were added to support the results.
“While preparing for the presentation, I needed to know how many words I can speak clearly and comfortably in three minutes,” Jay said. “I blocked out each section in a control time, then wrote a longer and more detailed version before adjusting the word count accordingly.”
As the presentation was developed, he found out he had to leave out some details.
“I had to leave out information on the origin of PEDV,” Jay said. “Presenting the evidence and explaining it was too technical and would have taken too much time.”
Consolidating his research into three minutes was tough enough, but Jay faced another issue. He arrived in the United States just three years ago as an international student to start his PhD program.
“I had never used English in a presentation or even in my daily life before I arrived here,” he said. “Back then I could never have imagined standing on the stage at this type of competition, which focuses on communication and public speaking.
“I would encourage all students whose first language is not English not to underestimate what you think you can achieve. All that practice and training will pay off one day.”
Jay’s practice and training paid off for him. His presentation was voted the “People’s Choice Award” during the 3MT competition.
His research is conducted with Dr. Luis Gimenez-Lirola and Dr. Rahul Nelli, both in the Department of Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine.
November 2025