Hearing loss is the most common neurological disorder in the world, affecting ~400 million people according to the World Health Organization. Although there are no biological treatments for hearing loss, now, more than ever, there is remarkable opportunity for fundamental discovery in the basic neurobiology of the inner ear as well as opportunity to translate these discoveries into real world strategies for treating hearing and balance disorders.

We have an active research group focused on the function, dysfunction and restoration of the auditory system. Our goal is to understand how stimuli from the external world, such as sound, gravity and head movements are converted into electrical signals, how the information is encoded and how it is transmitted to the brain. We want to understand why genetic mutations cause hearing loss and vestibular dysfunction. We are using this information to design novel therapeutic innervations to treat deafness and balance disorders.

Recent work has focused on gene therapy approaches for restoration of function at the cellular, systems, and behavioral levels. Together with collaborators, we have also devised methods for generation of inner ear organoids from mouse and human stem cells.  We plan to use the inner ear organoids as an abundant source of sensory hair cells to enable accelerated translation of novel therapeutics to the clinic.