Join me on today's episode where I sit down with Dr. Linnea Baudhuin, a devoted wife and mother of five who just so happens to be a distinguished molecular geneticist. Dr. Linnea shares with us how she stays focused on her vocational call of motherhood while also contributing to advancing the field of genetic science as a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the Mayo Clinic.
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Join me on today's episode where I sit down with Dr. Linnea Baudhuin, a devoted wife and mother of five who just so happens to be a distinguished molecular geneticist. Dr. Linnea shares with us how she stays focused on her vocational call of motherhood while also contributing to advancing the field of genetic science as a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the Mayo Clinic.
Enjoying this podcast by theheadwrapsocialite….Like, follow and share! Comment below to keep the conversation going.
IG: theheadwrapsocialite
Good afternoon and welcome to everybody. The podcast which shares stories that highlight people in life, that make the world an interesting place, which ultimately ties us all together in unique and wonderful ways. And who am I? You might ask. I would be the headwrapped socialite Weith mom, micro-influencer in the fashion and etiquette world, but on this podcast I will be introducing you to some people who I've had the opportunity to meet along my journey, who have helped enrich me in my life in beautiful ways and who I hope will do the same in your life. I have the pleasure of sitting with Dr Linnea Bodewin, a loving wife and mother of five, who is also a distinguished clinical molecular geneticist and professor of laboratory medicine at the Mayo Clinic, a co-deputy editor of clinical chemistry, who is at the forefront of cutting edge research, with expertise in a vast array of genomic medicine. I'm excited to welcome my friend Linnea to today's podcast. Could you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are?
Speaker 2:Thank you, trina, it's so great to be here. A little bit about myself, I think you summed it up really well. As you mentioned, I am a clinical molecular geneticist. I specialize in genetic testing for cardiovascular and renal genetic disorders. I also specialize in pharmacogenetics, which is looking at the genetic makeup of somebody to try to individualize their therapy. I've been at Mayo for 21 years. Like you said, I have five kids. I'm incredibly busy. I have two in college, two in high school and one in middle school and, yeah, life is good.
Speaker 1:What you do I find really interesting. Question that I have is what is the difference between genetics and genomics? Could you please enlighten me?
Speaker 2:I think it's a really good question and it's something that comes up a lot. It's kind of subtle and it's funny because even my field has changed over the past 10 years and how it's naming things and even the division that I'm in. At Mayo we went from the division of laboratory genetics to now the division of laboratory genetics and genomics. My board certifying agency went from the American board of medical genetics to the American board of medical genetics and genomics and genetics is, I think, more of a little bit narrow focus. It's more looking at just the genes that encode for proteins. So we have our genome, which is three billion base pairs, and only about one to two percent of our genome is actually encodes for genes that encode for proteins. So we have this 98 percent of the genome where a lot of it we don't really know what it does.
Speaker 2:And it can regulate gene expression or RNA expression or chromosome folding and different things, but we don't really have a good grasp on it. So, basically, genetics is a little bit narrow or focus, but it's most of what we do when we're talking about testing and diagnosing people and doing pharmacogenetic treatment, companion diagnosis, those kinds of things, whereas again, genomics is broader but again there's less we understand about it.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I would say well, how does bioinformatics? What section would that fall under?
Speaker 2:That's a combination.
Speaker 1:My field has changed a lot.
Speaker 2:So when I started 20 years ago as a fellow in a clinical genetic testing laboratory, we were doing very focused genetic testing. We did not have the technology to do what we're doing today and my field has really exploded and it's just a fun place to be. But the technology requires bioinformatics. And it's actually like, I'm impressed that you know that.
Speaker 2:So now, because we're doing, we're able to sequence our whole genome, but how do we make sense of it? Because it's huge. Again, we're talking, you know, 3 billion base pairs and we need some sort of computational analyses or bioinformatics in order to be able to see differences in our genome compared to you know the reference genome again in diagnosing diseases or understanding what's going on for somebody's health. So bioinformatics is really a big part of what we do today.
Speaker 1:When did you know this was going to be the field that you were going to go into? Like? When was that moment that you said you know what I'm all in? This is my jam.
Speaker 2:I love it that you're asking me this question because it's a conversation I have with my kids a lot about. You know. There's so many great options out there, I mean, and so many different things that interest us right. So I always was interested in science and I always love math and I started out in college as a math major thinking because I love math puzzles and you know so much. And then I went down the path and then I took my first course in abstract math and I was like wait a minute.
Speaker 2:This is ridiculous. It was just too like philosophical. So I changed my major to biology and I grew up in a house where my dad was a pathologist so go and visit him at work. But it was just fascinating and he would tell us stories and so I was always interested in medicine as well and so many different things that I like I could do this, I could do that. And so how do you? How do you narrow down, how do you focus? How do you determine where you're, where you want to go?
Speaker 2:And for me it was really a matter of of asking God what he had planned for me and trusting that he would open doors for me. And you know, I got my bachelor's degree in biology, and then I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. And I ended up going to grad school to work on a master's degree in clinical laboratory science, which is essentially working in a clinical lab doing testing. And when I was there, one of my friends said, hey, there's this graduate program over in Cleveland and you can go there and get your PhD in, basically in clinical laboratory science. I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. And I kind of thought, oh, maybe this is a door that's open for me.
Speaker 2:So I I applied to that program and I got in and Bob and I moved to Cleveland. We were married by then and things kept happening and doors kept opening for me. The door to come to mail to do a fellowship opened for me. The door for my current position opened for me a year before I was done with my fellowship. I think all along I've just felt that this, this is what God has intended for me and I'm so glad because I love my job. And if I was telling Bob the other day I was saying you know, you could probably talk to anybody and nobody would love their job more than I do except maybe Jay Morris.
Speaker 1:He's got a love. His job Fantastic.
Speaker 2:You know I'm helping patients. I'm in an area that's so interesting and changing. I work with fantastic people and I have a family. I live in a great community. You know if that's not God?
Speaker 1:what is it? You know this is.
Speaker 2:This is really where I feel that God wanted me to go, and so I I try to think of that as much as possible, because you know why did he put me here, and I want to be able to use the talents he gave me to help people. So I think anybody who's struggling with knowing what to do and I tell my kids, pray about it and think about you got opening doors for you, because he has a plan for you. You don't know what it is, but he does, and so you have to trust in that as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like what you said, how every step of the way, like the Holy Spirit, like moving you through those doors, each thing that you were doing became crystal clear. There are those moments that we have. I believe God shows his hand to us and allows us to be a part of this beautiful story and be brave enough to step through that door.
Speaker 2:That's the other part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's not easy to get.
Speaker 2:You can't just have things handed to you. You have to work for it. So yeah, but it's a risk that you have to be willing to take if that's where you think your path is going, for sure, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:So, as code deputy editor of clinical chemistry, what exactly does your job entail?
Speaker 2:This is my second year now as code deputy editor of clinical chemistry.
Speaker 2:Clinical chemistry is a journal it's actually the premier journal in laboratory medicine and our journal publishes papers that are based on different methods for the clinical lab and for diagnostics, monitoring disease and in areas like that, in all areas of laboratory medicine, which includes microbiology, genetics, genomics, chemistry, all different disease states, and so it's actually a really fun thing to be code deputy editor.
Speaker 2:And what code deputy editor means is that I'm one step below the editor in chief and if the editor in chief is unable to answer questions or make decisions, the code deputy editors there's two of us we step in and make the decisions, and it's really fun. I find it a nice little side thing to do, even though it involves quite a bit of time, because there's so many interesting things that come our way and we meet every week the editor in chief and some of the staff and talk about different papers that we've been reviewing or handling different situations. There's all sorts of interesting things that come up besides the science and the medicine of the manuscripts how are we going to guide authors in terms of different controversial things and so it's really fun. It's completely different than my day-to-day job, but it's really fun to be more on the cutting edge of what's coming out in laboratory medicine.
Speaker 1:What advancements in genomic technologies are you most excited about currently?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so many things. One area that I really focus on is called genotype phenotype correlations, and we have this ability to sequence the genome and find so many more things going on in the genome than we used to be able to do. We can make better correlations between the genetics of somebody and the disease that they're expressing. So with that we are now finding that we can really personalize medicine for individuals so we can say, ok, you have this phenotype and you have this genetic makeup. We can give you this certain therapy. We can do this management.
Speaker 2:We may want to consider prophylactic surgery depending on the dimensions of your aortic route and having this gene involved. So we're able to make these connections again to provide this more personalized medicine. But there's just so much, even more than that that we're still not able to do what we want to do and it should be coming and it has to do more with artificial intelligence and taking all these different omics things, genomics, transcriptomics, patient imaging. There's so many possibilities now with artificial intelligence and machine learning and now we have the electronic health record so we can mine data from the electronic health record and make better correlations and just integrating everything to make things more personalized for the patient, so they get the best treatment possible.
Speaker 1:That's so cool, but how close do you think we are to getting to something like that, where people who may not have access to health here, but they can go to their CVS or Walgreens or whatever you know getting OK.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great question because it's something that we do talk about and I think there's definitely right now some inequity in health care in terms of genetic testing, because it is very expensive and it is only able to be performed by really larger laboratories. Because it is a very expensive technology and it requires a lot of resources, requires a lot of support to be able to do this type of testing. Whether it's bioinformatics, genetic counselors, lab directors, physicians there's a whole team of people that need to be involved in order to perform the genetic testing, interpret the results and put together a report that makes sense. But I am excited about the way that technologies are changing. They're becoming smaller, cheaper faster, better.
Speaker 2:That eventually this technology in the near future, I think is going to be able to be rolled out to smaller labs, perhaps even places like CBS and Walgreens, and be more accessible to everybody. And I think that's really exciting, because we all have things in our genetic makeup that can influence our health care, and there's so many more common things that many of us are not aware of. So, even genetics or not, everybody should get their cholesterol checked, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people don't know their cholesterol, and there's a very common genetic disorder known as familial hypercluster alemia. It's one of the most common genetic disorders.
Speaker 2:It's very treatable and so if somebody can get their cholesterol checked, even when they're a kid, they could potentially be treated for it early on and prevent early cardiovascular disease, and so we can detect that with a cholesterol test. We can also detect it with a genetic test, and in fact it is being done in some studies on a preventative case where population genetic type of thing, where. So, for example, mayo Clinic has the tapestry study, where they do look at the genes involved in familial hypercluster alemia, and so you can get tested through that, and I think it's just that awareness of just knowing you might be at risk for cardiovascular disease based on your genetic makeup or your cholesterol. I think it's really important for everybody to be able to have access to that Very simple, easy blood test, whether from the standpoint of cholesterol or even a genetic test. And, like I said, the technology is changing, so if things are becoming more and more accessible, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Can you elaborate a little bit more on the significance of genomics and understanding and treating these conditions? Because a lot of times I feel especially within the African American community, this is something that's very prevalent. I cholesterol runs deep and sometimes we think that, well, because my mom didn't have it. Maybe your mom didn't know she had it, but that is not going to happen to me. And some people think, well, I don't eat fast food all the time, oh, that means I'm not going to get high cholesterol, but it could be something that is familial. So no matter what you eat, you can still have that.
Speaker 2:I think that's also a really excellent question because there is sort of a limited awareness of if you have a genetic basis for high cholesterol. You can change your lifestyle but you're still going to have high cholesterol because of the mechanism of what's going on inside your body. And FH is very common it's it's one in 200 to one in 300 worldwide. You can eat healthier, you can exercise, which is all great, but if you have FH, the best treatment for you is likely going to be a statin drug and statins work are very effective for low cholesterol, for FH.
Speaker 2:So you don't necessarily have to get a genetic test to know that you might have FH. You know FH can be diagnosed based on LDL cholesterol levels, which is like what they call quote unquote bad cholesterol, and sometimes family history is present, sometimes it's not and sometimes, like you said, you might not know your family history, your parents might not know their family history or their cholesterol levels. So cholesterol test is something that's very easy to do and, again, it's very treatable and cardiovascular disease with FH can be very preventable if caught early.
Speaker 1:Thank, you Balancing a demanding career with being a wife and mother of five? How do you manage to balance life?
Speaker 2:A couple years ago, I was asked to write an article on work life balance and I wasn't sure how to approach it, because they're integrated. You can't really separate work from life and life from work, and what I found is that something has to give and, depending on what it is, it might be your work, it might be your home life, but it's it's always kind of a constant state of flux. You can have it all but you can't have it all, and I think just the recognition of you know, I want to raise my kids and be there for them and try to attend as many of their things as possible and be close to them, and in order to do that, I might have to sacrifice some of my career high profile activities, which I think is okay.
Speaker 2:The way I look at it, part of my vocation is is as a mother, as well and and trying to raise good people to also be productive citizens, and so I think the balance is really it's a give and take, and then sometimes I'll say you know, what I want to go over to Europe and give this presentation, or go over to South Korea and be present for this conference and give a presentation there, and so I'm not going to be around, so you know.
Speaker 2:So then I'm grateful I have a great spouse who is very hands on as well, and I think we just have to to rely on on each other. But it is like I said, it's an ebb and flow, a give and take, and just the realization that you can have it all, but you can't have it all without some sort of sacrifice.
Speaker 1:Well, so my takeaway from what you just said is that having it all may not mean perfection, but at all moments we try to prioritize what truly matters in our lives, and I just want to say thank you for sharing. I would have sat in a spotlight on you, but you enjoy playing the piano, sports, gardening, puzzles like you mentioned earlier and travel. How do these hobbies contribute to your well-being and your work-life balance?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was just thinking, yeah, I love those things, but when do I get to do them? So actually I think the piano has been a huge godsend for me because it's just I don't play the piano a lot, but what I do is just very relaxing and it's a way to just kind of get into a different world. And during COVID is when I really play the piano a lot and I was so grateful to have that as a distraction and I learned Moonlight Sonata, which I love. It's such a beautiful piece.
Speaker 2:Probably the first movement.
Speaker 2:I cannot do the second and third movements, but my kids play piano and it's wonderful to be able to have some sort of music going on in my life. I love working out and exercising. I ran track and cross country and college. I can't run so much anymore because of an injury, but I still try to do something almost every day, even if it's just for like 20 minutes and even if it's just something like going for a walk, which doesn't excite me as much as doing something more cardiovascular. But I think it's important also for our mental health and well-being to spend some time just exercising.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:And I like to put together puzzles and board games and all those things. It can be very challenging to find downtime to do those things but, it's important, I think, to carve out time during our day to try to fit those things in.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I agree with you, and even though right now we're in negative temperatures, so it's hard to look forward to the spring. But how often do you get out to garden?
Speaker 2:I love doing, but oh, my garden is pathetic, no, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, let me just tell you, dear listeners, that, first of all, her garden is not pathetic. It's going to downplay her gardening abilities, but she really is an avid gardener and she has a wonderful green thumb.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I have to credit my parents. So, first of all, my name is Linnea, which is it's a Swedish name, and the reason my parents love the name Linnea is because it's named after a famous botanist, carl Linnaeus. My mom was a master gardener, my dad loved horticulture so I grew up we'd go for walks and my parents would be teaching me names of trees, and my mom was a huge gardener. We always had beautiful flower beds, vegetables.
Speaker 2:She grew up on a farm, which you know I think it's still that and her so I just always loved nature and loved having, you know, a lot of flowers and interesting plants in my yard and actually, like you know, my husband's really great with the pruning and knowing when to do all that kind of thing, and together it's been really fun, because our yard started out as pretty much blank, a typical. Our house was built in the 80s. We have a typical 1980s yard, when we first moved there, and now it's been transformed into something that we really love and it's just. I think it's a place to, you know, find refuge, even though you know we're in town and our yard isn't that big or anything, but it's just. You can look out the window, or you can sit outside and just kind of take you away to a different place for a moment, which I think is always wonderful. For sure, you're a perfect oasis.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I will tell the listeners and I don't know if you remember, but you might if I bring the story up. There's one time where we had come over to your home, and I believe it was during like the family rosary, and all of a sudden Linnea starts bringing out these boxes. Like what's in these boxes? We're like what are these? Are these like cookies? Can I tell you? Inside the boxes were labeled these beautiful and I would say they were butterflies. Oh, do you remember Linnea? Yes, and I was like, oh my gosh. And then her handwriting. I mean, it was just so perfect, it was so tiny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like we couldn't do that today and I was like who does this? I?
Speaker 1:was like this is somebody I could be friends with. I was like she's really cool.
Speaker 2:But yeah, oh gosh, you're taking me back. Yeah, so those are my entomology collection from college actually. So, as I mentioned, I was a biology master, I was a math major, became a biology major and I'm so glad I became a biology major because I got to take all these cool classes Entomology, arachnology, which is spiders. I took a bird class I can't be that in for it. So now I'm really good at identifying birds. But yeah, I had this or I have this insect collection, basically that I've held on to, and I also have interesting fact a spider collection from arachnology and I donated it to my professor and he donated it to the Smithsonian. So I have spiders that are in the vaults of the Smithsonian somewhere.
Speaker 1:That is so cool, like I just want to clap. That is so awesome. Yeah, that is pretty cool, so it's really fun yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you know, with basically like what my parents taught me growing up in trees and plants and everything, and then the courses I took in college. I love nature and I love getting out there and identifying things and it's so fun because we live in such a fascinating natural world and there's just so many interesting and interesting things to see.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's one fact that I never knew about you. Yeah, so now next time when I go to the Smithsonian, I'm going to be like, excuse me, I'm a curator. That is so. That is so awesome. I have thoroughly enjoyed this, this chat with you and this sit down today and as we conclude this episode with Dr Linnea Bodwin and explored the multifaceted life of a clinical molecular geneticist. We've also discovered her personal side, beyond the lab, from the joy of playing the piano moonlight sonata to the therapeutic nature of gardening and I've heard this saying before and it has often been attributed to Mary Engelbreit it's about people being there for one another and being a friend in the garden of life. And there are certain people that you meet along the road where they just add another layer to your story and they just make your life just more beautiful. And every time I have an interaction with you, linnea, my heart is left full. You bloom me and you grow me in ways that I didn't know that I needed to be bloomed, and I am grateful for our friendship.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, trina. I think it's just beautiful the way that that God has brought us together, and I'm so grateful for my friends in faith. They lift me up and they remind me that there's more to life than you can see, and it gives me a lot of hope and joy. So the same back to you.
Speaker 1:So now that this interview is officially concluded, I have a couple fun questions for you, okay, okay. So the first question. I was thinking I'm like if you were to organize a genetics themed dinner party and you can invite three historical figures, fictional characters or contemporary personalities, who would be on your guest list and why?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that's a great question. You're always, so I keep saying that that's a great question. Okay, gregor Mendel, okay, so I always think it's so interesting because so much of our, our scientific knowledge is from, like, monks and you know, saintly Catholic people who studied science, and Gregor Mendel is one of those he was he was the the father of genetics.
Speaker 2:You know, everybody knows their pea flower colors, biology class and like how to cross hybridize different pea strains to get like different colored flowers. You know that was Gregor Mendel Just I think you'd be fascinated to talk to just. You know how did he even think of? Doing this or think that it had to do with genetics, and so that's, that's one person. Oh gosh, I'm trying to like narrow it down, I don't know. I just think that there's a lot of even modern day geneticists who have really revolutionized technology and our creative thinkers.