Kristy Red-Horse says she “eats, breathes and lives” her work — even though it doesn’t really feel like work to her. Although studying how blood vessels develop and respond to injury sounds (and is) complicated, it fits well with what she loves about science and the medical questions she wants to answer. Red-Horse is a professor of biology in the School of Humanities and Sciences and one of Stanford’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigators, but there have been times when such achievements have seemed out of reach.
Red-Horse talks about the many people who have inspired and supported her, how her work translates from the laboratory to clinical medicine, and how failure and success have helped get her to where she is today.
“I think the ability to pick up and try something new is pretty important. I wasn’t afraid to move, I changed labs a few times and it was the best thing I ever did – that’s a little secret to my success,” Red-Horse said. “Everyone shines in different environments in different ways. You just have to find your place.”
Learn more about the who, what, how and why of Professor Kristy Red-Horse here:
Who are you)?
I’m Kristy Red-Horse, professor of biology and associate professor in the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and a research scientist at HHMI.
We study how the blood vessels of the heart – the vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart muscle – develop and how they respond to injury, such as a heart attack or myocardial infarction. One reason we are so interested in development is because the pathways responsible for blood vessel development are the same ones that can be used to encourage new development when they are blocked.
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, so research into these diseases is important to develop new treatments that are less invasive than open-heart surgery.
What (are you doing at Stanford)?
We’re currently focused on using innovative strategies to achieve our results, particularly using natural variation across species to investigate ways to increase the repair capacity of the human heart. For example, we’re currently studying guinea pigs because they can’t have heart attacks if they have blockages in their coronary arteries. Instead, they develop these natural bypass arteries. We’re studying this so that in human heart disease, we can encourage the growth of bypasses – perhaps by triggering certain molecular pathways using drugs. In some people, these collateral bypass arteries can grow, but we don’t yet understand all the reasons why.
Collateral bypass arteries are a really interesting type of vessel and a rare type of artery. Normally, arteries branch out like trees into smaller and smaller capillaries. But these are like the rungs of a ladder and they are connected to each other. How these form is really fascinating from an evolutionary perspective.
How (did you get here)?
I had a high school teacher named Mrs. Parnell who got me interested in biology because her classes were so fascinating. And then I studied microbiology at the University of Arkansas and I was really excited about immunology. The immunology professor asked me if I wanted to do some lab research – I don’t know if you know Arkansas well, but it’s the land where Tyson chickens are grown, so I studied poultry immunology for my first project.
I knew I enjoyed research, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to move to somewhere new and exciting, so I went to San Francisco State University for my master’s degree and worked in a bacteria lab on transcription regulation, how cells regulate the transition from DNA to RNA. When I cloned my first plasmid, I immediately thought, “I love molecular biology,” and from then on I haven’t looked back. I just love the actual physical process of doing molecular biology experiments and looking under the microscope and all that stuff.
Around that time, I heard Susan Fisher from UCSF give a talk about the placenta and its role as a vascular organ. I was fascinated by both the research and her as a potential mentor, so I joined her lab and stayed for a PhD, and that’s how I got into vascular research. Then I did a postdoc where Mark Krasnow encouraged me to study a vascular bed that was clinically important. So I decided to dive deep into the blood vessels of the heart. I found that scientists at the time didn’t even know the origin of these blood vessels – there was so much to discover that it’s been keeping me busy for about 15 years now.
It’s been difficult for me in getting to where I am now because, although I’m of Indigenous descent, I didn’t meet my grandfather until I was in my twenties. I struggled a lot with being a role model for other Indigenous scientists – wondering if that was appropriate for me and “do I really deserve this?” – because I didn’t grow up in that culture. It’s better now because I have the means to give back and support other Indigenous scientists, and I’ve been able to talk and learn about my culture with that part of my family.
Kristy Red-Horse in her office | Eli Ramos
Another difficulty was that I did two postdocs. The first one, I felt like I was doing a lot of experiments, but nothing was coming together properly or coming together – this just wasn’t the right place for me to shine, and I realized that. Then I moved to Mark’s lab here for my second postdoc. When that happened, I was devastated, absolutely devastated, because I thought I had blown my chance to be head of an academic lab. Because in my opinion, you just don’t do two postdocs. So I thought I had failed.
But after that time, I didn’t care if I was brilliant or good looking, so I just enjoyed my life. It was a very sad moment, but I learned not to worry all the time about how you look or how you work. Whenever something really, really hard happens, I think maybe it’s for the best because I remember that time.
Why (do you do what you do)?
I mean, I’m really immersed in this work. The process of discovery and the human story of how discoveries happen brings me so much joy. I love going to a seminar and hearing about someone’s big discovery and how they came up with it. And of course, I just love the process of experimentation. I love the beauty of doing an experiment and having all the controls and the answer being very clear.
I’ve also thought about becoming an artist and I like visually appealing images, which has also influenced my work. I tend to lean more towards experiments where I can see visually appealing representations of science.
The clinical translational aspect is another reason I do this research. When I opened my lab, I gave a talk and a surgeon came up to me and said, “Those are really nice images you presented, but I think you should be looking at these other really cool vessels called collateral arteries.” So even though I was really good at understanding the biology, we needed a hint from clinicians to direct us to some important biological insights – and we still work with clinicians to understand what’s going on.
Now we’re working with Tim Assimes and colleagues affiliated with the Million Veteran Program. This program collects data from an imaging technique inside the body called an angiogram that allows scientists to look at the coronary tree and link it to different genetic markers or DNA variants. And one of the key hits in their genome-wide association study was the exact same molecular pathway that we had found to be responsible for the formation of collateral arteries. Knowing that this pathway is important in controlling coronary growth and development in humans gives you the energy to keep going. And we just received a grant from the National Institutes of Health that will help us study why some people form collateral arteries.
That’s happened to me a lot: I get questions after a talk and I think, “Should I tell them I’ll never be able to answer that?” But then somehow a technology or a collaboration comes along and I get to actually explore it. So when that happens, it’s really special. And a lot of it is down to relentless persistence – that’s how you can make yourself shine.
