Babak
Shadgan
Assistant Professor, Dept of Orthopaedics
Director, ICORD Clinical Biophotonics Laboratory
Research Theme:
Cellular & Molecular Engineering,Research Interests:
Biophotonics to study tissue processes, including blood and oxygen supplies, continuous monitoring of spinal cord hemodynamics and oxygenation in acute spinal cord injury, implantable NIRS sensors, sports injury prevention
Biography:
As a sports physician-scientist, Dr. Shadgan is also a pioneer researcher in applying photonics techniques to the evaluation and monitoring of skeletal muscle metabolism and function during exercise and when affected by injuries. Using modifications of wireless and wearable NIRS systems, Dr. Shadgan explores the quality of muscle contraction and recovery in high-performance athletes as well as in people with neuromuscular and muscle fatigue conditions. He is also developing applications of infrared Imaging techniques for non-invasive evaluation of skeletal muscle injuries.
Dr. Shadgan is a medical doctor specialized in Sports and Exercise Medicine, with a PhD in Muscle Biophysics from UBC. He completed a fellowship on NIRS-Diffused Optical Tomography at Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging of MIT/Harvard University. Dr. Shadgan’s primary research is focused on design and application development of wearable and implantable biosensors to study tissue and organ metabolism and function in clinical settings. Dr. Shadgan has developed a miniaturized implantable optical sensor for monitoring spinal cord tissue oxygenation and hemodynamics in patients with acute spinal cord injury. Developing multi-modal sensors and systems for continuous and real-time evaluation and monitoring of tissue viability and function in reconstructive surgery and organ transplantation is another ongoing research domain of Dr. Shadgan. As a sports physician-scientist, Dr. Shadgan is also a pioneer researcher in applying multi-modal sensors to assess and monitor skeletal and respiratory muscle metabolism and function during exercise and when affected by injuries. Using modifications of wireless and wearable NIRS systems, Dr. Shadgan explores the quality of muscle contraction and recovery in high-performance athletes as well as in people with neuromuscular and muscle fatigue conditions.
RESEARCH EXCELLENCE:
Implantable biosensors hold promise for enhancing patient care in trauma, organ transplants, chronic diseases, and tissue regeneration. Under artificial intelligence, when paired with a continuous treatment or drug delivery, an implantable biosensor can establish an intelligent closed-loop system to overcome an unsolved clinical challenge, e.g., artificial pancreas in diabetic patients, improving outcomes while reducing complexity and cost.