“The question is, how many potential scientists are lost because they have never seen a path forward?” says Anna Bright, a Neuroscience PhD student. “What if, instead of stumbling upon a passion by chance, students had direct access to mentors who could illuminate the possibilities before them?”
When Anna Bright, a Neuroscience PhD student at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, was growing up in rural Tennessee, it was not easy to imagine a career in science. Who would be her role model?
“My story is not unique,” says Ms. Bright. “Countless rural students face similar struggles, navigating their education with limited exposure to careers beyond their immediate surroundings. The question is, how many potential scientists are lost because they have never seen a path forward? What if, instead of stumbling upon a passion by chance, students had direct access to mentors who could illuminate the possibilities before them?”
Today, Ms. Bright is leading an outreach effort to implement mentorship initiatives in rural school systems that connect students with alumni who have pursued advanced degrees in science and medicine.
Ms. Bright passionately wrote about her outreach effort in an essay, “Sending Science Down Yonder,” that she submitted recently for the international 2025 Essay Contest sponsored by the Lasker Foundation. In July, she was named one of the four co-winners. Participants were asked to write about a specific innovation in education or training that would help ensure a sustainable, inclusive, and successful future biomedical research workforce. Click here to read her essay and to watch short videos about her interests and experiences as a young scientist.
“Beyond the initial excitement of being named a winner, I mostly felt grateful to have my story shared with a wider audience,” Ms. Bright says. “This is tangible evidence that my personal experience struggling to find how someone of my socioeconomic background could fit into the academic world is something worth telling—and ideally, correcting, for the next generation of scientists.
“Today, well over halfway into my PhD, I still have moments where I doubt I belong in this space. This is a reminder that educational resources need to be extended to students who still encounter barriers to higher education—whether that be financial, cultural, or systemic. I would like to thank my lab members and my mentor, Joel Blanchard, for cultivating such a supportive and creative space for conducting science.”
Ms. Bright is a fourth-year student in the lab of Joel Blanchard, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, and Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, whose research group engineers 3D models of human brain tissue from stem cells and applies them to understanding and therapeutically targeting risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease, and other forms of cognitive impairment.
“We are particularly interested in how glial cells and brain vasculature play a role in neurodegeneration,” she says. “We explore how genetic and environmental factors affect astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes, and the blood-brain barrier in ways that trigger pathology.”
Her thesis project centers around how APOE4, a gene variant and the largest genetic risk factor for AD, affects oligodendrocyte development and myelination. “The primary role of oligodendrocytes in the brain is to produce myelin, the fatty blanket wrapped around axons to promote health and signaling. Myelin degeneration is one of the earliest pathologies in AD, so understanding why it breaks down in this disease could open the door for novel preventative methods.”
In July, she was the first author on a review paper in Nature Cell Biology that included Dr. Blanchard and two researchers affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
“We reviewed literature connecting oligodendrocyte and myelin deficits to AD,” she says. “A wide range of evidence implicates this cell type in AD onset and progression, and we discuss seminal studies establishing oligodendrocyte biology as a key player in AD, proposed underlying mechanisms, emerging techniques in myelin research, and next directions for this field of study.”
Says Dr. Blanchard: “Anna brings a rare combination of creativity, persistence, and a deep sense of purpose to her work. Her research on how APOE4 affects oligodendrocyte development is breaking new ground in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, while her passion for mentorship and outreach shows her commitment to shaping the future of science. We’re incredibly proud to see her recognized with this award. It reflects both her scientific contributions and the positive impact she is already having on the next generation.”