Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics PhD students win top Grad Slam prizes

Two PhD students from the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics (PSPG) program took three of the top prizes in UCSF’s 2025 Grad Slam, an annual research communication competition organized by the Graduate Division and held in celebration of National Graduate Student Appreciation Week. 

Sophia Miliotis’ presentation, “Finding HIV: A Swipe in the Right Direction,” which compared the matchmaking of the Tinder dating app to our immune system, earned her first place from judges as well as the People’s Choice award. She received a $4,000 check and will go on to compete in the University of California systemwide Grad Slam competition on April 29 in Sacramento. Miliotis also received an additional $750 prize as the audience’s People’s Choice winner. 

Maggie Colton Cove came in second place with her talk, “Building Biological Sleeper Agents to Fight Brain Tumors.”

With a presentation titled “Building Biological Sleeper Agents to Fight Brain Tumors,” Maggie Colton Cove, also a PSPG PhD student, was the evening’s second-place winner. She took home a $2,000 purse for eloquently summarizing her work on enabling the efficacy of Chimeric Antigen Receptors T cell (CAR-T cell) therapy against brain tumors. 

Each of the 10 graduate student finalists delivered a three-minute presentation of their complex work to a combined live and remote streaming audience of more than 600. Finalists were challenged to explain their research in an engaging, lay-friendly manner to a panel of five judges, a few of whom were past competition winners. 

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How Your Immune System Plays Matchmaker to Find and Kill HIV