The small Canadian mining town of Timmins isn’t known for much. The big exceptions are its many professional hockey players and Shania Twain, the country music star who grew up in the 45,000-person town.
Physician-scientist Caitlyn Vlasschaert (she/her) grew up there, too, with no road map for her career and few people she could talk to about her future. “I had no preconceived plans, really,” she said. So Vlasschaert turned to intuition.
“It takes me like three seconds to make a decision on what I’m going to order at a restaurant, “ she told STAT. “I’m like that for a lot of fairly big life decisions.”
Her gut — and much effort — led her to medical school and a residency in nephrology, with a pause for a two-and-a-half-year Ph.D. in translational medicine. While on a six-month stint in the Vanderbilt lab of genetic disease investigator Alexander Bick during that time, Vlasschaert authored a key paper on clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential, or CHIP. The mutation, present in about 10% of people, can increase risk of certain diseases, including acute kidney injury, she found.
The discovery could help scientists figure out how to stop or slow organ damage, and expedite the application of powerful gene therapies in kidney disease. In the meantime, Vlasschaert managed two achievements in quick succession: She gave birth to her daughter about a month after defending her thesis.
—Isabella Cueto
