ASCI / Emerging-Generation Awards, 2023

Caitlyn Vlasschaert, MD, MSc, is a trainee in the Clinician-Investigator Program – concurrently undertaking an internal medicine residency and a PhD in Translational Medicine – at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Prior to her residency, she obtained her MD from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (2019) and a Master's degree in evolutionary genetics from the University of Ottawa, which was deemed the Best Thesis in any Science discipline by the university that year (2016). Her current research focuses on how the kidneys are affected by acquired genetic changes such as clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP), a recently discovered hyperinflammatory disease of aging caused by mutations in hematopoietic stem cells that affects ≥10% of older adults. She has conducted seminal work showing that CHIP is associated with incident chronic kidney disease, faster kidney disease progression, and acute kidney injury. She holds a top-ranked Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) doctoral scholarship (ranked #1 among 418 applicants across Canada) and has published more than 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including 15 as first author. She aspires to become a clinician-scientist at the nexus of nephrology and genetics.