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Karen Hedin
Professor of Immunology, Principal Investigator at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, Scottsdale, Arizona
Professional Background
Karen Hedin, a distinguished leader in the fields of biochemistry and immunology, has made remarkable strides in research and education throughout her extensive career. With a Ph.D. in Biochemistry conferred by the prestigious University of Washington in Seattle, her journey began under the mentorship of the esteemed Roger M. Perlmutter. Under her previous name, Karen E. Chaffin, she immersed herself in advanced studies that would lay the groundwork for her future innovative contributions.
Following her doctorate, Dr. Hedin completed two significant postdoctoral fellowships at the renowned Mayo Clinic, where she specialized in Pharmacology and later in Immunology. At Mayo, she delved into critical areas such as G protein-regulated cardiac ion channels under the guidance of David E. Clapham, followed by research in T lymphocyte signal transduction led by David J. McKean. These experiences not only honed her technical skills but also ignited her passion for understanding complex biological systems, specifically those pertaining to cancer and immune disorders.
Renowned for her research excellence, Dr. Hedin was awarded her first R01 NIH research grant in 1999. This crucial funding propelled her to establish a forward-thinking, NIH-, foundation-, and industry-funded research program focused on studying G protein coupled receptors (GPCR) and chemokine receptor signal transduction. Her work is especially relevant to developing treatments and strategies to combat cancer and various immune disorders. Over a span of 17 years, she has been the Principal Investigator of multiple NIH R01 grants, firmly establishing herself as a pivotal figure in the fields of chemokines and cancer.
In addition to her research endeavors, Dr. Hedin is an active contributor to the academic community, often invited to review research grants for the NIH. Her commitment to mentorship and training is evident through her sustained involvement in guiding numerous trainees within her lab, including many promising under-represented minority students (URM). In February 2019, she relocated her laboratory from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona as part of the institution's ambitious expansion in the Phoenix area.
Education and Achievements
Dr. Hedin's extensive educational contributions reflect her dedication to fostering the next generation of scientists. In her dual role as a seasoned researcher and educator, she has taken on multiple leadership positions within the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences over the past fifteen years. Recognized for her contributions, she currently serves as a standing member of the NIH TWC-D, a body dedicated to reviewing biomedical research training grants targeted towards under-represented and minority students.
Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Hedin has successfully co-PI'd and co-directed two NIH NIGMS R25 diversity research training programs aimed at Ph.D. and post-baccalaureate/pre-Ph.D. training for URMs for over a decade. Her dedication to educational equity is further exemplified through her five-year tenure as Associate Director of Education for the Mayo Clinic Center for Regenerative Medicine. During this time, she developed the innovative Regenerative Sciences Training Program (RSTP), a new Ph.D. initiative designed to train future leaders in regenerative medicine. In addition, she demonstrated robust leadership as the Graduate Program Director of RSTP for two years.
Dr. Hedin's contributions to the academic sphere are also evident through her five-year directorship of the Mayo Clinic Immunology Ph.D. Training Program. Approximately one-third of trainees in this distinguished program receive vital support through the NIH T32 grant, while the remainder benefit from fellowships and institutional funding from the Mayo Clinic. Such programs reflect her commitment to promoting diversity and excellence in biomedical training.
Achievements
Throughout her illustrious career, Karen Hedin has accumulated numerous accolades and achievements that underscore her influence and leadership within the fields of biochemistry and immunology. Her research has not only advanced scientific understanding but has also paved the way for new therapeutic strategies in cancer treatment and immune disorders.
In total, Dr. Hedin has overseen 17 years of NIH R01 funding, guiding her research lab toward groundbreaking discoveries in chemokine biology. Her ability to secure funding consistently over the years highlights not only her expertise but her ingenuity and capacity to address critical research questions. Furthermore, her involvement with NIH as a reviewer showcases her recognition as a thought leader, trusted by peers and the funding body alike.
Moreover, her commitment to mentorship is reflected in the success of her trainees, many of whom have gone on to make significant contributions in their own right. By fostering an inclusive and supportive lab environment, Dr. Hedin has nurtured a new wave of diverse scientists, ensuring that the next generation is equipped to tackle the complexities of biomedical research with empathy and expertise.
In summary, Karen Hedin's career is characterized by a profound commitment to research innovation, educational leadership, and mentorship. Her journey from the University of Washington to the Mayo Clinic's cutting-edge initiatives illustrates a dedication to advancing the fields of biochemistry and immunology, with a keen focus on inclusivity and diversity in science. Whether through her impactful research or her unwavering support for underrepresented minorities in academia, Dr. Hedin stands as a model of excellence in the scientific community.
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Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.