September 2023 – Chloé Landry (Canada)

1. Tell us about yourself.

My name is Chloé Landry. I am a PhD candidate in the program of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Over the past few years, I have been conducting research at the Kidney Research Centre of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.

2. What are your research interests?

I am interested in studying neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and the mechanisms by which these intricate webs of DNA contribute to target organ damage. More specifically, I am interested in the role of NETs in endothelial dysfunction, and how they may contribute to hypertension onset and progression.

3. What are you working on right now?

At the moment, I am in the 4^th year of my PhD. I am mainly working on my thesis project investigating the mechanisms of NET-induced endothelial injury and their role in renal and vascular injury in hypertension.

4. What do you hope to achieve in the field of hypertension over the next 5 years?

I hope to have a better understanding of NETs and how they act as mediators of endothelial injury. Achieving this would allow me to shed some light on the involvement of NETs in hypertension pathogenesis and may identify NETs as a potential therapeutic target.

5. What challenges have you faced in your career to date?

I would say that the biggest challenge I have faced is starting my PhD during the COVID-19 pandemic. I had restricted resources and limited access to research facilities during this time, as was the unfortunate reality of most researchers.

6. Which of your publications are you proudest of and why?

As I am still doing my PhD, my first author paper is pending. However, the contribution to the field that I am most proud of would have to be the abstract and talk that I presented at ISH2022 in Kyoto. I presented evidence linking NETs to direct endothelial cell injury in vitro and showed that the degree of injury may be dependent on the conditions in which the NETs were formed.

7. What is your favourite manuscript from a lab other than your own?

One of the manuscripts I really enjoyed reading when I first started working on NETs was “Peptidylarginine deiminases 2 and 4 modulate innate and adaptive immune responses in TLR-7–dependent lupus” published in JCI Insight by Yudong Liu (https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.124729). Although the role of NETs in inflammatory autoimmune diseases such as lupus has been well established, this was the first paper to directly link PAD4 (the enzyme responsible for NET formation) to vascular injury.

8. What are your passions outside of work?

Outside of work, I try to spend as much time as I can with friends and family. However, I also enjoy having time to myself to exercise, tend to my plants, read, and crochet!