The Discovery of Traumatic Brain Injury Biomarkers:
The Journey From Bench to Bedside
Learning Objectives
- Describe the journey of traumatic brain injury (TBI) biomarkers from bench to bedside
- Describe how a TBI blood test could change clinical practice for mild traumatic brain injury patients
- Describe clinical implementation and barriers
Speaker
LINDA PAPA, MD.CM, MSc, CCFP, FRCP(C), FACEP
Director of Academic Clinical Research
Attending Emergency Physician
Orlando Health, Orlando Regional Medical Center
Professor, University of Central Florida College of Medicine
Associate Professor, Florida State University College of Medicine
Adjunct Professor, University of Florida College of Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University
National Institutes of Health (NIH) SIREN Network CORE-EM Principal Investigator
Dr. Papa is an Emergency Medicine Physician and Director of Academic Clinical Research for the Orlando Health Orlando Regional Medical Center level one trauma center. She is Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Central Florida, Associated Professor of Medicine at Florida State University, Adjunct Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida, as well as Adjunct Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. Dr. Papa holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Community Medicine and has worked closely with various groups and agencies across the country to improve outcomes and advocate for patients with trauma and traumatic brain injury. She was part of a task force in Florida that helped to pass Florida’s Youth Athlete Concussion bill (HB-291) that provides concussion guidelines to ensure young athletes are adequately evaluated during sports. She is the recipient of several National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense grants to improve the care of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Most notable, was her pioneering work in the discovery and validation of the very first FDA-approved blood test for TBI (GFAP and UCH-L1), a journey which began over 20 years ago with a pilot study she designed and conducted in the emergency department on a shoestring budget. This study led to the first publication demonstrating the association of these biomarkers with traumatic intracranial lesions after a mild TBI in 2008. She serves as a scientific reviewer for several different federal funding agencies and has published approximately 400 original peer-reviewed research articles, book chapters, and abstracts. Dr. Papa and her emergency medicine colleagues in Orlando were first in the world to clinically implement the whole-blood point-of-care GFAP/UCH-L1 TBI test in adults presenting to the emergency department with mild TBI. Dr. Papa is actively involved in evaluating the impact of the TBI blood test on clinical practice, further defining their journey from bench to bedside.