BioE Faculty Awarded to Advance Tools for Sensing Traumatic Brain Injury Damage

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects millions of Americans a year and there are currently no therapeutics available that address the long-term impairments observed in the majority of TBI survivors. One major challenge is the lack of sensors that can stage the severity of injury and predict long-term outcomes after TBI. In order to address this challenge, Asst. Prof. Ester Kwon received an NSF CAREER Award in April 2021 to develop a new sensor that can measure the action of disease-causative proteins called proteases. In order to do so, she is leveraging the ability of nanometer-scaled materials or “nanomaterials” to enter into the injured brain across the damaged blood-brain barrier. She will combine these nanomaterials with synthetic peptides that are engineered as a switch to turn “on” in the presence of proteases that have elevated activity in TBI. The result will be a sensor that can detect protease activity after TBI in the living brain, which can be used to answer fundamental questions about proteases and TBI or developed as rapid diagnostic for TBI patients.

The award also supports Prof. Kwon to share with classrooms in the San Diego community that cool engineering can come in small packages. In partnership with high school teachers, she will be developing lesson plans to teach students about nanoscale materials in our daily lives, such as integrated circuits in mobile phones, nanoparticles in personal hygiene products, and microbial-resistant textiles.