This Project Grant award of $132,705 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173), will support research conducted by The Children's Hospital Corporation (doing business as Boston Children's Hospital) to investigate the role of mechanoelectrical transduction (MET) components in the development and function of vestibular hair cells.
The key objectives are to characterize how the heterogeneous regional expression of MET subunits contributes to differences in vestibular hair cell activity, and to determine whether an early critical period of MET expression precludes the effectiveness of gene replacement therapies at later stages. The research involves calcium imaging of hair cells, testing vestibular responses, and evaluating the efficacy of gene replacement approaches in mouse models. Findings from this project are expected to advance the understanding of vestibular hair cell function and inform the development of gene therapies for balance disorders.
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