K-RALD’s Dr. Sturgill Established Infrastructure Helping UK Handle COVID-19 Lung Samples

By the time COVID-19 first reached the Commonwealth, UK HealthCare had already established a system for efficiently collecting lung samples to propel important research forward. That’s thanks to Jamie Sturgill, PhD.

Dr. Sturgill is part of the Kentucky Research Alliance for Lung Disease (K-RALD), a team of clinicians and scientists combatting lung disease with support from the UK College of Medicine Alliance Research Initiative. In 2019, shortly after the K-RALD team was awarded Alliance funding, Dr. Sturgill led the development of a lung biobank to collect and study samples of lung, blood, and alveolar fluid. Initially, the biobank was intended to help researchers and clinicians study traditional lung diseases that impacted Kentuckians such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pulmonary fibrosis.

Then, in 2020, COVID-19 spread rapidly across the U.S. But K-RALD’s lung biobank team was already talking to patients and families, screening, enrolling, and collecting samples. In a time of health care urgency, “it just made that transition so much more simple,” Dr. Sturgill said.

Dr. Sturgill has been involved in every intensive care unit (ICU) collection for every COVID-19 sample UK researchers have used. Her team has followed every person who has gone on to have a lung transplant after suffering from COVID-19.

“We’re really facilitating the ICU clinical care to the lab and back,” she said.