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Jesus Contreras Rodriguezs talk was on the Role of Repair Response in Melanogaster
Drosophila. The talk was mainly focus on how systemic injuries affect the different stages of M.
Drosophila. Jesus started by highlighting the effect of systemic injuries which according to him
can weaken the immune system, it can lead to either an increase or a decrease in the metabolism
rate, and it can also lead to delay in development inorder to compensate for injury repair. In his
experiments, Jesus looked at two experimental groups, the first group is the injured experimental
group and the second group is the non-injured developmental group. At the end of the
experiment, he observed that the injured experimental group that had abdominal injuries result in
lower mortality compared to those that did not. The non-injured development group on the other
hand had very low mortality overall.
The presentation itself was very interesting in terms of the content, presentation style and the
sense of humor of the presenter. I think it was very detailed and Jesus did a good job of
thoroughly explaining his research in very simple terms which made it very easy to understand.
He appears to have a deep understanding of the research topic in general. As far as I am concern,
his presentation was arguably one of the best presentations of all the presenters because the
content was well explained and his presentation style was unique in a way. Furthermore, with
regards to style, his body language and voice tone really helped to draw peoples attention and
keep them interested and engaged. His presentation wasnt dry and monotonous, for instance, he
cracked a joke about taking coffee before the presentation which made the audience laugh, he
was one of few presenters, if not the only person that added humor to their presentations. I think
humor is really important when added at the right time because it helps to draw the attention of
the audience and make them less bored or uninterested.
Jesuss presentation was very good but there are few things that I believe he can improve on
when next he is presenting. Firstly, he appeared overly nervous and shaky which I believe is due
to the coffee he said he took before the presentation. Everyone gets nervous but when a presenter
is overly nervous, it causes the audience to think that the presenter is incompetent or doesnt
really know what he or she is talking about. It was finals week and he probably needed coffee to
stay alert and productive but I think it really contribute to his nervous appearance overall which
doesnt send a positive image about his competence or confidence to the audience. I think next
time, taking less coffee or no coffee at all before presenting will be very helpful. Secondly, even
though his presentation was very good overall, I feel that it was very wordy which can also be
very distracting because if a presentation is wordy, instead of paying attention to the presenter,
some of the audience members are usually busy reading the PowerPoint slides instead. So at the
end of the day to dont really get to understand that the presenter is trying to explain.