Eric Bauer

Senior Fellow

E-mail: ebauer@u.washington.edu

Mail: VM Bloedel Hearing Research Center
Dept of Otolaryngology-HNS
Box 357923
Univ. of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195

Phone: (206) 616-4112 (off)

Fax: (206) 221-5685

Hair cells, the sensory cells responsible for hearing and vestibular function, are fragile cells. A wide range of environmental and chemical stresses kill hair cells much easier than many other cell types. In mammals, including humans, this is a source of concern since hair cells in general cannot be regenerated once destroyed, thus leading to permenant deafness. Although a great deal of research has been conducted over the past 15 years on why mammals cannot regenerate hair cells while birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish can, less work has been performed addressing the question of what makes hair cells so susceptible to injury and death in all these animals in the first place. Using a genetic mutational screen of zebrafish, I will find genes that either enhance or diminish the zebrafish's hair cells' resistance to a known stressor of hair cell survival. Due to the conservation of crucial genes through evolution, the hope is to take these zebrafish genes and find their homologs in the mammalian genomes, and ultimately find a way to prevent hair cell death and hearing loss.

Klug, A., Khan A., Burger R.M., Bauer E.E., Hurley L.M., Yang L., Grothe B., Halvorsen M.B., Park T.J. Latency as a function of intensity in auditory neurons: influences of central processing. Hearing Research 148: 107- 123, 2000.

Bauer, E.E., Klug A., Pollak G.D. Features of contralaterally evoked inhibition in the inferior collilulus. Hearing Research 141: 80-96, 2000.

Klug, A., Bauer E.E., Pollak G.D. Multiple components of ipsilaterally evoked inhibition in the inferior colliculus. J. Neurophys. 82: 593-610, 1999.

Gilbert, C., Bauer E.E. Resistance reflex that maintains upright head posture in the flesh fly Neobellieria bullata (Sarcophagidae). J. Exp. Biol. 201, 1998.