TYLER – The University of Texas at Tyler received $100,000 from UT System’s Trauma Research and Combat Casualty Care Collaborative to help improve the lives of patients with Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI. Dr. Shawana Tabassum, the UT Tyler Mary John and Ralph Spence Professor of Electrical Engineering, serves as the project’s principal investigator.
Tabassum and Dr. Madhavi Pali, postdoc mentee and senior personnel, will develop a wearable sweat-sensing platform for non-invasive and continuous monitoring of TBI biomarkers. They will also investigate the role of inflammatory biomarkers released in sweat across different stages of
mild TBI, in collaboration with co-principal investigator Dr. Alan Cook at the UT Tyler Health Science Center.
“This research project is important because it is anticipated to enhance clinical monitoring of Traumatic Brain Injury patients over time, minimizing the need for blood draws and reducing clinic visits,” said Tabassum. “The time-sensitive monitoring of markers during and after a brain injury event will also allow for observing the immediate and subsequent effects, addressing challenges in examining post-injury adverse effects.”
Early diagnosis of mild TBI could additionally hold significant implications for the U.S. Department of Defense, Tabassum said, noting that rapid identification of mild TBI cases among military personnel enables prompt and targeted interventions, ensuring both timely and effective treatments.
Their next step is to reconfigure the wristband-style sensor prototype developed in this project to help with other types of diseases and physiological conditions, she added.
Tabassum’s research focuses on the development of flexible sensors and electronics using micro/nanoelectronics and photonics technologies. She applies this expertise to various areas, including biomedicine, plant sciences, sustainable and climate-smart agriculture, and environmental monitoring.
Tabassum, who joined the university in 2020, directs the UT Tyler Center for Smart Agriculture Technology, or CeSAT. Her research has garnered grants for UT Tyler totaling more than $1.2 million. She earned the 2023 Curtis W. McGraw Research Award (Non-PhD Granting Program Category) by the American Society for Engineering Education for her outstanding work.
With a mission to improve educational and health care outcomes for East Texas and beyond, UT Tyler offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs to nearly 10,000 students. Through its alignment with UT Tyler Health Science Center and UT Health East Texas, UT Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, UT Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.
