Insightful Discussion: A Patch Designed for Diagnosing Traumatic Brain Injuries
In a groundbreaking development, Jessica Gill, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Trauma Recovery Biomarkers, has been awarded the prestigious Lasker Clinical Research Scholar Award from the National Institutes of Health. Gill's research, focusing on the detection and analysis of biomarkers for traumatic brain injury (TBI), is gaining significant attention, particularly in the realm of sports-related injuries.
Current research confirms the value of biomarkers, especially inflammatory and metabolic proteins, in TBI prognosis, with most studies using blood samples[1][3]. However, the application of advanced proteomic technologies like OLINK for sweat-based TBI detection remains largely exploratory.
OLINK is a highly sensitive multiplex immunoassay platform that can profile hundreds of proteins simultaneously from small volumes of biological samples. It has been effectively used in cancer and other disease biomarker discovery, making it an excellent candidate for use in fluid-based injury biomarker detection[4]. The multiplex and minimally invasive nature of OLINK makes it an appealing choice for non-invasive monitoring, especially in sports contexts.
The use of sweat as a non-invasive sample for TBI biomarkers in sports is conceptually promising but still lacks substantial published evidence or standardized biomarker panels. The goal is to design a simple but refined test for TBI diagnosis and prognosis using OLINK technology.
Gill's personal experiences with head injuries have led her to focus on researching TBI biomarkers. Her daughter, Portia, required hospital care for TBI after a squad mate fell on her during a game. A negative CT scan does not rule out TBI, and TBI can have long-lasting effects on cognition, balance, and mood, affecting one in three people due to incidents on sports fields, battlefields, highways, and in homes.
Gill is expanding her biomarker research to include a wide range of populations, including the Johns Hopkins football team. She is collecting sweat from Johns Hopkins football players for biomarker analyses, aiming to develop an ideal TBI biomarker panel that would allow an athletic trainer to diagnose and advise players about treatment and prognosis post-TBI.
While OLINK technology is a cutting-edge method for multiplex biomarker detection and TBI biomarkers are a hot topic in neuroinflammation and prognosis research, the combination of OLINK-based detection of TBI biomarkers in sweat — particularly for sports injuries — is an emerging frontier still under investigation rather than an established clinical tool at present[1][2][4].
In conclusion, Gill's research could potentially revolutionize the field of sports medicine by enabling fast, sensitive detection of injury-related proteins without the need for blood draws. The ideal TBI biomarkers in sweat would provide a rapid, non-invasive diagnostic tool for sports-related brain injury, filling a significant gap in current diagnostic methods.
- Jessica Gill's research, focusing on TBI biomarkers, could revolutionize sports medicine, providing a rapid, non-invasive diagnostic tool for sports-related brain injury.
- The use of OLINK technology, a highly sensitive multiplex immunoassay platform, is being explored for the detection of TBI biomarkers in sweat samples, particularly in sports contexts.
- The biomarker research conducted by Gill extends beyond sports, aiming to develop an ideal TBI biomarker panel that would assist in diagnosing and advising treatment for players after TBI.
- The application of advanced proteomic technologies like OLINK for sweat-based TBI detection is promising conceptually, but substantial evidence and standardized biomarker panels are still lacking.
- The combination of OLINK-based detection of TBI biomarkers in sweat is an emerging frontier in research, with potential to fill a significant gap in current diagnostic methods for sports injuries.
