Kaitlyn Sadtler facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kaitlyn Sadtler
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Maryland, Baltimore County (BS) Johns Hopkins University (PhD) |
| Known for | US SARS-CoV-2 serosurvey |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Immunology (study of the immune system) Biomedical engineering (designing medical tools) |
| Institutions | National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering |
| Thesis | Th2 T-cells are required for biomaterial-mediated functional muscle regeneration (2016) |
| Doctoral advisor | Jennifer Elisseeff |
Kaitlyn Noelle Sadtler is an American scientist. She is an immunologist and a bioengineer. She works at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Dr. Sadtler is known for her work on materials that help the body heal. She also led the first big study of COVID-19 antibodies in the United States in 2020.
Kaitlyn Sadtler's Education
Kaitlyn Sadtler went to Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Maryland. She earned her first degree, a Bachelor of Science (BS), in 2011. She studied biomedical science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). She graduated with very high honors.
Her time at UMBC helped her learn about many science fields. These fields are now important for her work. Other scientists from UMBC, like Kizzmekia Corbett, also became well-known during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before her PhD, Dr. Sadtler worked at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This one-year job helped her discover her love for immunology. She then earned her PhD at Johns Hopkins University. She finished her studies in just three and a half years. Her research focused on how medical devices can cause scarring in the body. Parts of her PhD work were published in famous science magazines like Science and Nature Methods.
Kaitlyn Sadtler's Career and Research
After her PhD, Dr. Sadtler worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Robert S. Langer and Daniel Anderson. Her research there looked at how the body's immune system affects tissue growth.
During this time, she became a TED fellow. She gave a talk called "How we could teach our bodies to heal faster." In 2018, she was named an early Convergence Scholar. This was for her work in nanomedicine at the Koch Institute. In 2019, Forbes 30 Under 30 honored her. This was for her PhD research on how the body can reject medical devices.
Leading the First US COVID-19 Antibody Study
Dr. Sadtler organized the first large-scale study of COVID-19 antibodies in the United States. This study was very important. It helped scientists understand how many people had been infected without showing symptoms.
From April to July 2020, her team worked with 10,000 volunteers. These volunteers sent in dried blood samples for testing. The first tests were finished by the end of September. Dr. Sadtler's team was able to get samples from many different people across the US. This was because over 400,000 people volunteered to take part.
The first results came out in early 2021. They showed that for every known COVID-19 infection, there might have been almost five unknown infections. This meant up to 16.8 million undiagnosed cases early in the pandemic. The study also showed that Black and Hispanic communities were affected the most by the virus. Dr. Sadtler hoped to continue the study. She wanted to see how long antibodies lasted and how often people got reinfected.
