Julie Bastarache, MD, Assistant Vice President for Clinical & Translational Scientist Development at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been elected vice president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) for 2024-2025.
She subsequently will serve one-year terms as president-elect, and as president of the society in 2026-2027. Previous society presidents from VUMC include the late Grant Liddle, MD (1966-1967), Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD (2019-2020), and Lorraine Ware, MD (2020-2021).
Composed of more than 3,000 physician-scientists, the ASCI is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious medical honor societies. Its mission is focused on the special role of physician-scientists in research, clinical care and medical education, as well as leadership positions in academic medicine and the life sciences industry.
Bastarache, associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, and Critical Care Medicine, is one of 50 current, full-time Vanderbilt University faculty members who have been elected to membership in the ASCI.
A graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, she completed her residency and allergy/pulmonary fellowship at VUMC and joined the faculty in 2005.
Her research in the Laboratory for Science and Translation in Critical Illness focuses on the identification and study of biologic mechanisms underlying pulmonary dysfunction in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and non-pulmonary organ dysfunction during sepsis, a life-threatening condition that results from the body’s overwhelming response to infection.
Her role as Assistant Vice President for Clinical & Translational Scientist Development at VUMC, announced in February, includes leadership of Edge for Scholars, which provides comprehensive research career development resources to early-career faculty, pre- and postdoctoral trainees and leaders of institutional training grant awards.
Bastarache was elected to membership in the ASCI in 2020 and has served on the ASCI Council since 2021.
During her term as ASCI President, Bastarache said she hopes to develop programs and tools for collaboration, mentorship and advocacy among physician-scientists, and support programs to ensure a robust physician-scientist pipeline, as outlined in her VP ballot statement.