Krystal Tsosie

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Krystal Tsosie
Occupationgeneticist and bioethicist
Academic background
Alma materVanderbilt University
Arizona State University
ThesisA Multi-Faceted Approach towards Conducting Genomics Research in an American Indian Community
Academic work
Disciplinegenetics
bioethics

Krystal Tsosie (Diné) is a Navajo geneticist and bioethicist at Vanderbilt University. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator on a study that investigates genetic determinants of pre-eclampsia with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.[1] She is also an educator, an advocate for genomic and data sovereignty, and an expert on genetic and social identities.[2] Her work has been covered by various national news sources, including The New York Times, Nova, The Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, and The Boston Globe.[3]

Early life and education

Tsosie's family had been forcibly displaced economically and geographically from their home communities, so she grew up "non-res" in West Phoenix as the only native kid in her school. Her mother comes from Shonto, Arizona and her father comes from the Loop area in Central Arizona. Tsosie's father worked in the Phoenix Indian Medical Center, the largest Indian health service clinic in the US.[4]

Tsosie attended Arizona State University where she received a Bachelor's degree in Microbiology, a Master's in Bioethics, and a Master's in Public Health Epidemiology. She began her work in cancer biology, and she developed and patented a combined targeted ultrasound imaging and chemotherapeutic drug delivery device for treating early metastases in cancer.[3] However, when she reflected on her father's work at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center and the difficulty her tribal community had accessing specialty services, she realized that the work she was doing in that field might not reach her own community. This led to her changing her focus to genomics and health disparities, where she can more directly feel the impact of her research.[5][6][4] While studying bioethics, Tsosie experienced the aftereffects of the Havasupai legal case, in which ASU was sued for using blood samples that had been collected for diabetes research for other purposes.[6] Tsosie is currently[when?] a student at Vanderbilt University where she is completing her PhD in Genomics and Health Disparities.[7]

Career and research

Tsosie co-leads a study that investigates genetic determinants of pre-eclampsia, specifically in pregnant Ojibwe women and collaborates with the tribal-research review board.[8][9] Tsosie's team hopes that examining potential environmental and sociocultural factors will help these specific Native women in decreasing such high rates specific to their tribe. She has also focused on researching uterine fibroids in black women using genetic information.[10]

Tsosie "advocates strongly for genomic and data sovereignty and is currently[when?] assisting a Tribal nation with instituting their own policies for data privacy, bio-banking, and building research space for protecting the tribe's interests" as stated by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.[11][12] Indigenous data sovereignty claims that nations have the right to govern the collection, ownership, and application of their own data, in contrast to the ways in which researchers take and use Native data without permission and disregarding traditions.[5][13]

Tsosie co-facilitates the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING) workshop, which consists of an international set of workshops in Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada and the United States to build capacity in the fields of genetics and genomics among Indigenous peoples. Based upon the development of its workshops, the SING Consortium published a framework to enhance ethical genomics research with Indigenous communities.[14] Tsosie is also an organizer of and faculty for Indigidata, a week-long workshop that introduces tribal undergraduate and graduate students to data science and informatics skills.[15] She is also a co-founder of the Native Biobank Consortium, the first US Indigenous-led biobank.[16][17]

In 2022-2023, Tsosie was a Global Chair of ENRICH, a "four year program designed to create an integrated international network of Indigenous and allied scholars working in Indigenous data sovereignty and governance across a variety of disciplines including law, public health, policy, and genomic sciences."[18] This position includes a one-month residency at New York University.

Activism

Tsosie has spoken out about the controversy of Senator Elizabeth Warren's genetic testing. Tsosie has defended cultural and political identities that she feels are threatened when white people use DNA testing to find their blood quantum. Tsosie argues that being Indigenous is more than what can be discovered in a DNA test, and those who take these tests and claim to belong to specific tribes may not be respecting the tribes' rules regarding membership statuses.[19][20]

In a post to Twitter published by Mashable, Krystal Tsosie stated, "to ascribe any power to a DNA-test result dis-empowers those Native Americans who do live according to their traditions. Native American identity is not one of biology, but of culture. And, crucially, “Native American” is a political designation that confers rights. If that designation becomes tied to a DNA test, it could threaten those rights."[21]

Tsosie also advocates for the "decolonization of DNA"[6] and the acknowledgement that a variety of social, cultural, and colonial factors impact health and are also conflated with genetics.

References

  1. ^ Guglielmi, Giorgia (2019-04-16). "Facing up to injustice in genome science". Nature. 568 (7752): 290–293. Bibcode:2019Natur.568..290G. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01166-x. PMID 30992587.
  2. ^ "Krystal Tsosie". Vanderbilt University. 2019-10-03. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  3. ^ a b "Krystal Tsosie". ENRICH. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  4. ^ a b "23 and NOT Me (with Krystal Tsosie) | How to Citizen". www.howtocitizen.com. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  5. ^ a b Imbler, Sabrina (2021-06-29). "Training the Next Generation of Indigenous Data Scientists". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  6. ^ a b c "An Indigenous bioethicist on CRISPR and decolonizing DNA". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  7. ^ "Krystal Tsosie". Loop. Archived from the original on 2019-04-21. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  8. ^ "TCU Study Engages Tribal Communities in Genomics Research". Tribal College. 2018-04-24. Archived from the original on 2019-03-26. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  9. ^ Guglielmi, Giorgia (16 April 2019). "Facing up to injustice in genome science". Nature. 568 (7752): 290–293. Bibcode:2019Natur.568..290G. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01166-x. PMID 30992587.
  10. ^ Arnst, John. "Addressing the tangled roots of health disparities". ASBMB Today. Archived from the original on 2019-03-26. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  11. ^ "Indigenizing the Future of STEM". AISES National Conference. Archived from the original on 2018-10-10. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  12. ^ Saey, Tina Hesman (2 August 2018). "DNA testing can bring families together, but gives mixed answers on ethnicity". Science News. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  13. ^ Haring, Rodney C ; Blanchard, Jessica W ; Korchmaros, Josephine D ; Lund, Justin R ; Haozous, Emily A ; Raphaelito, Josie ; Hudson, Maui ; Tsosie, Krystal S. “Empowering Equitable Data Use Partnerships and Indigenous Data Sovereignties Amid Pandemic Genomics.” Frontiers in Public Health, vol. 9, Frontiers Media S.A, pp. 742467–742467, doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.742467.
  14. ^ Garrison, Nanibaa’ A.; Fox, Keolu; Krystal S. Tsosie; Begay, Rene L.; Anderson, Matthew Z.; Claw, Katrina G. (2018-07-27). "A framework for enhancing ethical genomic research with Indigenous communities". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 2957. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9.2957C. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-05188-3. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6063854. PMID 30054469.
  15. ^ "Faculty". IndigiData. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  16. ^ "Krystal Tsosie (NBDC & Vanderbilt)". UCSD Design Lab. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  17. ^ "Krystal Tsosie". ENRICH. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  18. ^ "Global Chairs". ENRICH. Retrieved 2022-02-25.
  19. ^ Zimmer, Carl (2018-10-15). "Elizabeth Warren Has a Native American Ancestor, But Does That Make Her Native American?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
  20. ^ Levenson, Michael. "Is Elizabeth Warren's genetic test conclusive?". BostonGlobe.com. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  21. ^ Ruiz, Rebecca (17 October 2018). "What you should do if a DNA test suggests you're Native American". Mashable. Archived from the original on 2019-05-04. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
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