Doctoral student Jacob Immel wins first place in 2021 3MT® Competition

The Three Minute Thesis Competition is a global research communication event with a compelling challenge: How well can graduate students convey the scope of their research to a general audience in three minutes or less?

After weeks of presentations featuring cutting-edge research, two University of Kansas graduate students rose to the top with the conclusion of the competition Nov. 19, 2021.

Jacob Immel, doctoral student in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, won first place and $500 for his presentation, “Building Peptide Drugs with Unnatural Amino Acids.” Jacob will represent KU at the regional competition in Milwaukee, WI on April 8, 2022.

Jacob Immel is a 2019-2023 Self Graduate Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Kansas. In 2018, he received his B.S. in chemistry from Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO. After completing two summers of research at the University of Missouri as a Steven’s Summer Research Fellow, Immel discovered his passion for research.  Now he seeks to combine his love for chemistry with his passion to improve the quality of human life through the study of medicinal chemistry. His research investigates the development of new methods for synthesizing peptide therapeutics with the goal of treating HIV and small cell lung cancer. Immel hopes to lead a research group in the future that develops novel therapeutics for the advancement of human health. Jacob is a third year graduate student in the laboratory of Professor Steve Bloom.