How 2 Cornell students plan to slash MRI wait times

Two Cornell PhD students are combining electrical and computational engineering with diagnostics to shorten MRI wait times, allowing for earlier detection of chronic diseases, according to a recent article from The Cornell Daily Sun.   

Biomedical engineers and PhD candidates Madhur Srivastava and Ruisheng Wang plan to use a $1,375 award from a pitch competition they won at eHub Collegetown through the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) to create the new MRI software. Sriwastava and Wang hope that it will reduce background noise in nuclear magnetic resonance readings, which is initially responsible for increasing MRI scan time.

Currently, the estimated wait time to undergo an MRI scan in the United states is two to four weeks and, unless an emergency, it is not readily accessible to patients, according to Wang. In less developed regions of the world, that wait time is increased due to a lower availability of MRI machines.  

“Through a business opportunity, we reinforced with CGIU that our project will reduce costs because if diseases are diagnosed early with improved MRI efficiency, this will lead to less healthcare cost to treat these diseases, which solves a societal problem,” Srivastava told The Cornell Daily Sun.  

Read the orginal article below for more information:

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A recent graduate from Dominican University (IL) with a bachelor’s in journalism, Melissa joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering all aspects of health imaging. She’s a fan of singing and playing guitar, elephants, a good cup of tea, and her golden retriever Cooper.

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