A unique pipeline is employed for biomarker discovery that entailed domain antibody phage display, next generation sequencing analysis, and nanotechnology strategies to generate antibody mimetics are disclosed. Also disclosed are the temporal biomarkers of traumatic brain injury and their methods of use. In some embodiments, the temporal biomarkers are synthetic peptides comprising the HCDR3 sequences identified using the disclosed pipeline. In some aspects, the synthetic peptides have less than 30 amino acid residues and comprise a biotin scaffold that is linked to the HCDR3 sequences.