Junk the Jargon 2011

The final of the 2011 competition was on Thursday 17th Feb in People’s Palace Lecture Theatre 1. All 12 finalists did a fantastic job of engaging, entertaining and educating the audience – there were creative analogies, humour, a huge variety of props and even the odd explosion!

The judges for the final were: Prof. Evelyn Welch, Professor of Renaissance Studies and Vice-Principal (Research & International Affairs); Prof. Colin Jones, President of the Royal Historical Society; Nicola Horne from Cancer Research UK; and Rhian Harris, Director of the V&A Museum of Childhood, and they had a really tough job to pick first, second and third place, but they eventually managed and the final decision was:

1st place: Myrto Chioni (and her two lovely assistants), from Barts Cancer Institute, for her description of “The secret life of Mr FGFR”.

2nd Place: Jamie Upton, from the Blizard Institute of Cell & Molecular Science, for his poem about baldness and his research on hair follicules.

3rd Place: Marie-Aimee Brajeux from the School of Law, for her talk about ASBOs.

The audience also had a chance to vote for their favourite, and they picked Alex Papple, from Barts Cancer Institute, for his amazing use of dangerous props to explain how anti-cancer drugs could be made more effective.