In 2020, Kathrin “Kat” Kajderowicz’s father handed away from lung most cancers. Kajderowicz was answerable for her father’s well being care for so long as she will keep in mind. Whereas he suffered from varied cardiovascular points for a number of years, it wasn’t till the start of the Covid-19 pandemic that he was recognized with late-stage metastatic small-cell lung most cancers. Leaping right into a main caregiver place, she intently monitored the therapies he acquired from medical doctors to no avail. “I used to be pissed off with the numerous medicines he was prescribed with out the medical doctors totally understanding how they interacted with one another,” she says. Even when a single doctor had been overseeing his complete therapy plan, she says, they nonetheless couldn’t definitively say whether or not the treatment combos have adversarial results that outweigh any optimistic influence.
This frustration set her on a scientific journey that has now culminated in her analysis as a PhD pupil at MIT’s Division of Mind and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Analysis. “My expertise led me to a major medical downside: How can we ultimately shift the medical paradigm to develop therapies that think about not just one particular pathway or downside however contextualize systemic tissue or organ dysfunction?”
To have interaction with this downside, Kajderowicz research animals uniquely tailored to deal with totally different stressors and environments, presumably modeling human illness states. “Maybe we will flip to nature and see how totally different organisms have tailored to beat and mitigate related challenges,” she says.
Kajderowicz now works in Professor Siniša Hrvatin’s lab at Whitehead, the place she researches chilly tolerance. “I am keen on exploring the mechanisms underlying mobile chilly tolerance in hibernating organisms.” Engineering chilly tolerance and stasis has many potential revolutionary future purposes. Within the close to time period, her work might enhance organ transplantation and cell or tissue preservation. In the long run, she hopes her work might catalyze a shift within the medical area away from its present crisis-mode method: “By slowing down bodily processes and illness development, a decrease metabolic state might pave the way in which for a brand new class of hypothermic therapies that induce human hibernation-like states for cells, organs, and even complete organisms.”
First-generation pupil and scientist
Kajderowicz’s clearheaded pursuit of elementary, large-scale scientific questions has propelled her spectacular profession as a younger scientist. Lately, she was awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New People, recognizing her distinctive path because the daughter of immigrants from Soviet Poland. Her dad and mom arrived in the USA with out having accomplished increased schooling levels, with none financial savings, information of English, medical insurance coverage, or immigration papers. They labored arduous to make a residing — her father was a building employee and her mom a housekeeper — utilizing a lot of their earnings to develop into naturalized residents.
Kajderowicz developed an early curiosity in a scientific profession. “My dad and mom, who did not go to school, did not push me towards any particular career,” she says. “This gave me the liberty to discover any area I wished, and my curiosity naturally led me to science.”
As an adolescent, she labored as a golf caddie to assist her dad and mom financially. Shoppers on the golf course assisted her in acquiring internships at biotech and tech corporations. Having gained Greatest in Class on the Illinois State Science Honest, Kajderowicz acquired a considerable scholarship to assist her research at Cornell College, however she continued working to pay for her bills and tuition. At Cornell, Kajderowicz joined the famend Lab of Ornithology, the place she utilized machine-learning strategies to review songbird communication and different behavioral patterns.
Kajderowicz’s journey as a neuroscientist started at Harvard Medical College in Professor Connie Cepko’s lab, the place she studied the developmental trajectory of a inhabitants of retinal interneurons. “Studying the right way to establish cell signatures was a captivating introduction to the complexity of life. However I in the end realized I wished to pursue the questions that saved me up at evening — each how we course of data and the way and why these processes change throughout getting old. For me, these are life’s greatest unanswered questions, and I imagine neuroscience is the muse for every thing. This led me to MIT’s Division of Mind and Cognitive Sciences.”
Studying from hamsters
Kajderowicz utilized and was admitted to over two dozen graduate applications — “however I knew I wished to go to MIT BCS. That was a no brainer,” she says. “The division has college members in all ranges of neuroscience: the mobile and molecular, techniques, computational, and cognitive ranges. It is superb to have all these individuals below one roof.”
Shortly after beginning her graduate work at MIT, Kajderowicz realized she wished to give attention to the mobile degree. “I feel it is essential first to know how issues work inside cells earlier than specializing in perform and techniques.” She additionally seeks a translational avenue connecting principle and remedy, bridging the hole between fundamental science and utilized therapy.
Kajderowicz discovered what she sought on the Whitehead Institute’s Hrvatin Lab and Weissman Lab. “It is really distinctive to have entry to 2 very totally different communities at MIT. In BCS, I’m seen as a biologist, whereas on the Whitehead Institute, I’m extra of a neuroscientist. It is nice having of us from totally different coaching backgrounds difficult my concepts and work.”
As an alternative of working instantly on how cognition is encoded on the mobile degree, Kajderowicz determined to embark on a venture that will enable her to determine how totally different species survive excessive stressors and environments. She is now creating instruments to review chilly tolerance throughout a number of species on the mobile degree.
“Hibernating hamsters can safely endure extended durations throughout which their physique temperature drops to 4 levels [Celsius]. By taking a comparative species method, I wish to establish whether or not hibernators are uniquely genetically programmed to resist these circumstances or whether or not non-hibernators do not activate these genetic pathways,” she says. Subsequent, Kajderowicz hopes to determine the right way to switch or activate cold-protective results to human cells and, sometime, complete people. Whereas she is not instantly learning the foundation of cognition, she hopes her analysis will assist preserve or improve cognitive functioning all through getting old by pushing the boundaries of the kinds of medicines and therapeutics obtainable.
Constructing a scientific group
Kajderowicz’s involvement within the scientific group extends past her instant work. On the peak of the pandemic, she initiated a digital platform facilitating conversations on biotechnology developments amongst researchers, biotech professionals, enterprise capitalists, and others keen on staying up to date on cutting-edge developments. Referred to as “DNA Deviants,” the group she constructed consists of a number of thousand energetic members on a number of social media platforms.
“It began with a casual journal membership I had with some associates, the place we’d meet over espresso and focus on new papers. Then, when the pandemic shut down every thing, I began a real-time podcast on the Clubhouse app with a good friend, discussing rising biotech developments. Finally, it turned an internet journal membership, and folks simply saved becoming a member of. We obtained consultants to serendipitously be a part of conversations inside their realm of experience from all over the world.” Immediately, nearly a dozen PhD, MD-PhD, and motivated undergraduates worldwide take turns main conversations with totally different paper authors.
“It has been extremely rewarding to stay related not solely to my work, but in addition to achieve a complete understanding of what is taking place on the earth,” Kajderowicz says. “You at all times must look past your instant circle.”
