ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2023

Derek W. Russell, MD is a K08-funded investigator with active research spanning the translational spectrum. His bench/translational research, anchored by a 2019 co-first author publication in Cell, explores the role of extracellular vesicles in the pathogenesis of inflammatory lung diseases such as COPD. This work has revolutionized the scientific understanding of long-held tenets of protease-antiprotease biology in general and the pathogenesis of COPD in particular, and his lab's findings have already been confirmed and reproduced by multiple other groups. In parallel with his laboratory work, Dr. Russell also leads an active clinical research program in critical care medicine. As Co-Director of the UAB Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine Program in Medical ICU Research (PRIMER), Dr. Russell designs, conducts, and coordinates clinical and observational trials in the ICU setting at UAB Medical Center. He was Study PI and Protocol Chair for a 1,065-patient 11-site U.S. pragmatic randomized trial of critically ill adults examining the effect of fluid bolus on hemodynamics during intubation, which was recently published (first author) in JAMA. Dr. Russell serves on the Executive, Steering, and Protocol Committees for the Pragmatic Critical Care Research Group (PCCRG), a national research consortium of about 25 research sites that specializes in pragmatic trials of critical care medicine interventions such as tracheal intubation. He also serves or has served as site principal investigator (PI) for 7 other studies of tracheal intubation in critically ill patients in the ICU and emergency department (ED) with the PCCRG. Furthermore, Dr. Russell is site PI and member of key committees for a number of other prominent national and international research consortia such as the I-SPY COVID Consortium (BARDA, DTRA, DOD), ACTIV/PETAL (NHLBI), and STRIVE (NIAID/NCATS).