Week 8 - Last Week of Immersion

I recently completed my final week of the immersion program. The last week was heavily research focused. I set up multiple meetings with my clinical mentors, PI, and several other lab members who all play a role in the research project that I was given this summer. I was able to show everyone some of the general ways which QSM reveals differences in myelin and iron content in lesions caused by small vessel disease compared to multiple sclerosis. From my initial findings, it appears that myelin content in both diseases is similar, but iron content appears to be lower in multiple sclerosis. I will need to normalize the data to ensure that this is the case, but it was interesting to see this trend in the raw data graphically. I am hoping to continue to work on the project even though the immersion term has ended, since most of my work is computational and could potentially be completed remotely. Ultimately, this summer was a great learning experience for me. This summer, I was able to learn about an area of medicine and medical research that I had never considered pursuing before and discovered that I liked it quite a bit. I also had the chance to see the clinical approach biomedical research. I am optimistic that my experiences during the immersion term will help me to perform well when I begin the first semester of my PhD program in the near future. 

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