April 26, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by South Dakota Biotech.

Cassie Hajek Blosl is helping lead a California genomics company into the future – from Sioux Falls.

It’s the latest in a series of exciting career moves for the Sioux Falls native, who originally pursued industrial and operations engineering and management consulting before shifting to medicine.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan before graduating from medical school at USD.

An internal medicine physician, her professional experience includes residency and fellowship time in New York and California before returning to practice at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls a decade ago.

She subsequently served as director of clinical service and education, and most recently as the medical director of Sanford Imagenetics for the past three years.

In February, Hajek Blosl took on a new role without leaving town. She’s now the medical director of Helix, a California-based leading population genomics company that works at the intersection of clinical care, research and genomics.

“Cassie’s experience shows there are dynamic and growing career paths in Sioux Falls and South Dakota for people who are highly skilled in genomics, which is a rapidly evolving field in medicine,” said Joni Ekstrum, executive director of South Dakota Biotech.

“And beyond that, her latest role shows that you can lead in this industry for companies anywhere while being based in South Dakota. We’re grateful to be able to connect Cassie and her new employer to our growing area bioscience community.”

We sat down with Hajek Blosl to learn more about her history, new role and perspective on this evolving field.

If life had gone differently, you could have been an engineer or consultant now. What ultimately drew you to medicine and genomics?

I liked consulting, but you go into companies and spend a few months and leave and don’t really see the outcome. I have always had a strong interest in science, and the computational problem-solving of engineering drove some of my interest in medicine and ultimately internal medicine, which tends to present complex patients, and then ultimately genomics, which allows you to dig really deep and look for not immediately obvious causes for people’s problems. It’s really powerful once you do find them.

How did your role at Sanford evolve over time with the launch of Imagenetics?

Imagenetics is such a unique opportunity to integrate genomics into primary care. I was able to develop a provider education program in genomic medicine, develop and launch a preemptive genetics screening, look at how to educate patients and providers, and then start multiple research protocols. 

Tell us about your new company. 

Helix is a genomics company based in California, and essentially what we do is work with health systems, public health organizations and life science companies to build out their population genomics programs. Our health care partners are continually growing and include Medical University of South Carolina, HealthPartners in Minneapolis, Mayo Clinic and Renown in Nevada. Our solutions allow for identification of at-risk patients in three disease categories: breast cancer and colon cancer predisposition and increased risk for heart disease based on high cholesterol. Those conditions are underdiagnosed, and there are treatments or screenings that can be done to reduce risk.

What does your role entail?

I’m two months in and the first to be in this role, so it’s still evolving. I’m the second doctor to join the company; the other is the founder and CEO. Part of my job is to develop a plan for what’s next – what are the medically relevant conditions that could be screened for, or what other test could we offer with a medical justification? And I work really closely with our health system partners to help with implementing these programs – from physician education to what it should look like in the medical record and clinical workflows.

What attracted you to the new opportunity?

I think we’re at a point where this kind of information is really starting to be helpful in risk stratification and identifying patients who might otherwise be undiagnosed. Not every system can do what we did at Sanford. Our company helps build genomics programs to bring this type of medicine to more patients. Our program also offers significant opportunity for research, which allows for additional genomics discovery.

How do you anticipate the field of genomics continuing to grow?

It’s been really interesting to see the evolution of this space. I have seen a shift in provider acceptance and awareness of genomics in medicine and its utility. We have a long way to go, but thanks to Sanford I had exposure to things that in a lot of systems you just wouldn’t have. I’m excited to see where it all goes. This is another tool in the toolbox to inform care just like any other diagnostic or screening mechanism. I think we’ll get to a point where we have it for most people and can use it.

With you now based in South Dakota, do you think there will be other opportunities for people to work for or otherwise connect with Helix?

 I think so. They continue to grow, and I think COVID changed everything. They really adapted to remote work. They’ve become very comfortable with the virtual work environment. I wouldn’t have expected to be a medical director for a genomics company in California and stay in South Dakota, and it was exciting to have that opportunity. 

Would you like to connect to the growing biotech community in South Dakota? Email [email protected] or visit sdbio.org.