Page 388 - AWSAR 2.0

364 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
A Diamond in the Rough
Mr. Ajin Joy*
Email: ajin.joy@iiitmk.ac.in
Everything happens for good and nothing lasts forever, a mantra that has always had an overwhelming influence on me.
Something which kept pushing me forward at every turn of my life, filling my mind with hope, caution and confidence at the same time. The story of my journey to PhD in the field of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) so far is also something that is strongly connected to this belief. Otherwise, the gem that I found would have been just a rock that hardly shines.
In the present day, MRI scanning rarely needs any introduction. Over the past five decades, the technology involved in it has really matured to make it a widely used imaging modality to picture internal organs of the human body. It has helped numerous people by aiding in early detection and
staging of numerous diseases and monitoring the body’s response to various treatments. However, on the flipside, it still remains a fact that the imaging speed is very slow. But hey, the story of a hero is rarely complete without a villain and the story of MRI is no different. Patients have to stay still for a long time to avoid artifacts (unwanted information) appearing in the image. Not to mention the not-so-musical sounds and the effect of confined space inside the scanner on claustrophobic people.
“Of course, a skilled radiologist would not have to break a sweat to tell an artifact from all the useful information when they see it, but isn’t it better if we could just scan it faster?” This is how I was introduced to the topic of my research. My job was simple and well- defined. Suppose we collect less data from
* Mr. Ajin Joy, PhD Scholar from Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala, is pursuing his research on “Robust Approaches to Non-Linear Diffusion Based Compressed Sensing in Parallel MRI”. His popular science story entitled “A Diamond in the Rough” has been selected for AWSAR Award.