As a student at Mount Sinai’s Master of Science in Biomedical Science program, Mackenzie Langan says she had an extraordinary opportunity to join the ultra-high field MRI neuroimaging team led by trailblazing scientist Priti Balchandani, PhD, and use 7 Tesla MRI to image the brain at greater magnet resolution. Ultra-high field MRI—coupled with novel processing pipelines developed in the Balchandani lab—allows Mount Sinai scientists to gain a deeper understanding of neurological diseases in ways never seen before, providing new insights into epilepsy, for example, major depressive disorder, and COVID-19.
“I have had the opportunity to explore MRI research and look at the brain in different ways,” Ms. Langan says. “Here, we use an ultra-high field MRI magnet and advanced contrast and resolution to look at detectable differences that you wouldn’t see at lower MRI magnet strengths—the kind used in a clinical setting. Being able to ask questions about the brain, and image it in really advanced ways, is what’s so alluring about MRI and all the incredible things that you can discover,” explains Ms. Langan. “The possibilities are endless, and that’s what is most exciting for me.” She will continue her MRI research as she pursues her PhD in Biomedical Science at Mount Sinai.
By the time Ms. Langan graduated in June 2022 from the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, she could claim a list of remarkable achievements. In April 2022, she was first author of research published in Frontiers in Neurology and is a middle author of a paper accepted to Brain and Behavior. Two abstracts presented at the May 2022 International Society in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine annual meeting in London will likely yield new first-author manuscripts. She also received an award for best poster in the neuroimaging category at the 10th Annual BMEII Symposium, hosted by the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute (BMEII), part of the Icahn Mount Sinai, and received the Graduate School’s Master of Science in Biomedical Award for Scientific Excellence.
Beyond her coursework and lab work, Ms. Langan is active in the Mount Sinai community, where she is involved in PEERS, a resilience program designed to help students navigate the non-classroom aspects of graduate school, including work-life balance, stress management, and other challenges they may face. Earlier in 2022, she was part of the Icahn Mount Sinai Student WorkForce mobilized during the busiest times of the COVID-19 pandemic to alleviate non-medical staffing shortages caused by staff illness.
Reflecting on the past two years of her studies, she admires the mentors she has had and what she describes as the “incredibly intelligent, hardworking, and passionate” students she has been surrounded by every day. “Mount Sinai has completely changed my life,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of really great mentors and I definitely would not have gotten here without the support of all those people. Everyone is invested in seeing you succeed. And I think that the level of caring is something that has just really blown me away.”