My name is Tori Stromp, I’m a 2nd-year graduate student at the University of Kentucky and
I work within the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center and with the Gill Heart Institute and
our lab is working on developing some new MRI techniques to image hearts in a variety
of different patients.
So in normal cardiac MRI, they have to use contrast agents and they have to be injected.
Those can be really dangerous for some people, specifically people who have renal problems
or problems with their kidneys.
So we are— I have the pleasure of working with those exact patients and using our new
technique that does not involve any contrast agents in order to identify changes in their
hearts.
My dad was a scientist and he’s always pushed us to be smarter and to ask questions and
to really look into the details of how things work.
He went more of the biology route and I was a little more drawn towards the medicine route
but I think that kind of drive in our family to really question things has really helped
me to become a scientist.
Interestingly, my mom is a musician and I turned into a dancer because of that but I
kind of got the background of being a choreographer through that and it kind of solidified my
place as being backstage, I love being backstage and really influencing the end products, so
combining those two really made me realize that being a researcher was a good way to
influence medicine and doctors without being one myself.
Actually, our lab is really unique, we have a wide variety of backgrounds that come in
and really everyone brings their own skill set that helps all of us really succeed.
You know, we really have built a strong team that, you know, we can pick each other up
where we have weaknesses but we also really get to shine on our own strengths as well.
My typical day doing research starts with acquiring MRI images from patients that we’ve
recruited to be in our studies.
I work within the Gill Imaging Center on their clinical scanner and I’m fortunate to have
been trained really well in actually acquiring the images on that scanner.
Everybody’s heart is different which makes it a challenge but it also helps us really
hone in on what we’re looking for and how we can measure it, because if this is a technology
that we’re trying to push into the clinics one day, it needs to be able to work in everybody’s
heart and it makes it challenge to look at different hearts every single day and really
see what’s going on, but I think it helps keep our—keep our technology really meaningful
because it’s the exact kind of people that we want it to be used in later on.
For a person interested in doing this kind of work, I would suggest looking for opportunities
anywhere that you can find them.
Researchers love to talk about their science, so the first thing you should do is ask.
We all love spreading the word about what we’re doing and we all love the help.
Research is very hard work so people coming in and volunteering their time is really important
so if you’re interested in doing the science that we do, ask around see, if they’re any
opportunities to you know, look at a lab, volunteer in a lab and just become part of
the science and see where it takes you.