Celebrate All Scientists: Krystal Tsosie
August 9 is International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples and LSC is celebrating Krystal Tsosie!
Krystal Tsosie is a Navajo geneticist, ethicist, professor, and PhD student at Vanderbilt University. When she was young, her family was forcibly removed from their community so they moved to west Phoenix, Arizona for the remainder of her childhood. There, she was the only Native American student in her elementary school. The lack of representation of and for Native American people in education, healthcare, and science would become a common theme in her life. The disparities she witnessed helped Tsosie decide to dedicate a large part of her higher education and career to advocating for minority rights and representation in healthcare.
Tsosie completed her undergraduate degree at Arizona State University in microbiology. She later earned a master’s degree in bioethics and another master's degree in public health epidemiology there. She has conducted research at Vanderbilt University on pre-eclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs during the late stages of pregnancy. Pre-eclampsia causes a person with previously normal blood pressure to suddenly develop high blood pressure. Her study of pre-eclampsia is the only genetic study known to specifically research the predisposition of American Indian women, a population that is often overlooked in healthcare and science. Pre-eclampsia can sometimes present with no symptoms, making it even more dangerous. Tsosie works to find genetic determinants that could indicate a predisposition to pre-eclampsia.
Another part of Tsosie’s work is to study and alleviate some of the health disparities faced by minority groups, specifically Native Americans. She co-founded the first US indigenous-led biobank called Native BioData Consortium, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting genetic samples of indigenous people from exploitation by storing the samples on sovereign Native land.
Tsosie will begin an assistant professor position at the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences in the fall of 2022. Her work will continue to help recognize and protect the rights of indigenous people in science.
