Meet Taseef Farook, a Research Associate in the College of Medicine and Public Health whose career has taken him from creating life-changing facial prosthetics to exploring the mysteries of what happens to our jaws while we sleep. With a background in dentistry, maxillofacial prosthetics, and digital healthcare innovation, he now combines dental research and sleep medicine to better understand (and treat) the night-time habits that affect our health.
What is your role and what does your work focus on?
I joined as a Research Associate to support A/Prof. Andrew Vakulin’s NHMRC-funded project investigates the night-to-night variability in breathing parameters among patients with obstructive sleep apnoea, its long-term health effects, and the effectiveness of available treatments.
Where did you work and / or study before joining CMPH / Flinders?
I have a dental background from Bangladesh and a Masters in maxillofacial prosthetics from Malaysia. I completed my PhD at Adelaide Dental School, University of Adelaide, investigating why our jaws move the way they do. Throughout my PhD, one recurring theme was participants complaining about sleep bruxism, mouth breathing, jaw clicking, and soreness from daytime clenching. These issues are often linked to sleep health and are very relevant to dentistry, especially if you grind your enamel to the point where your teeth become so sensitive that you can no longer enjoy your morning coffee or that cold drink after a workout.
Dentistry is largely a daytime trade, and what happens at night for a patient often remains a mystery to us…unless, of course, you can make a career out of watching strangers sleep! I suppose I am one of those lucky few. I wanted to understand sleep disorders, how treatments are approached, and how dental and sleep research can be combined to produce meaningful dental sleep medicine research in South Australia. In that regard, I feel humbled to have been given the opportunity to conduct research and learn from some of the finest sleep researchers South Australia has to offer.
Can you share a memorable experience or project from your career that had a significant impact on you?
In Malaysia, I first became involved in research while working with a multidisciplinary team providing prosthetic rehabilitation for patients who had lost facial features due to road traffic accidents, debilitating illnesses, or cancer surgery. One case that stayed with me was an eight-year-old boy who had lost an eye at an early age due to an early childhood illness and was now being bullied by his peers. He told us he didn’t care about being able to see through a fake eye; he just wanted to look “normal.”
The case posed quite a few challenges. Prostheses made using conventional methods were not retentive enough because the growing child’s eye muscles had collapsed after years without an eye.
To be honest, I was surprised when an entire team of multidisciplinary experts assigned me to the group tasked with researching and replicating a novel digital technique to solve the issue; I was the first to question their decision. In hindsight, I’m glad they stood their ground, even if their reasoning was that a lazy person with sufficient background knowledge often finds the most efficient and innovative solutions when put on the spot.
After a gruelling phase of trial and error, we finally developed a prosthesis that worked. When the nurse led the boy to a mirror to teach him how to put it on and take it off, the first thing he did after wearing it was turn to me and smile.
That was the moment I knew I wanted to pursue research further. Five years, one PhD, 60+ publications, 3 grants, and 6 awards later, my research career is still going (reasonably) strong…and as far as I know, most of my research participants are still alive!
How do you like to relax or spend your spare time?
Considering how much I love travelling and engaging with people, many are surprised when I say my ideal way to relax isn’t jetting off to some exotic destination, but rather keeping to myself at home. They often stare at me in disbelief, as if they’d expected me to spend my free time skydiving off an active volcano for fun. Honestly, if I have some spare time, I enjoy staying at home, playing video games or working on the sequel to my flop comedy-thriller novel series Unpopular Opinions.