Hearing Health Foundation’s mission to fund innovative, groundbreaking hearing and balance science is only possible because of you. We are grateful for the support of our community.
The Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) is an international, collaborative research consortium focused on investigating inner ear hair cell regeneration using animal models to accelerate the timeline to a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus.
The Emerging Research Grants (ERG) program provides seed money to scientists researching underfunded areas of hearing and balance science, and for every dollar HHF invests, grantees receive on average $59 in major federal funding (2002–present).
Your generous support produced the following significant achievements this past year:
The HRP’s Andy Groves, Ph.D., along with ERG scientists Melissa McGovern, Ph.D., and Bradley Walters, Ph.D., showed that in the mouse inner ear, mature cochlear supporting cells could be reprogrammed into sensory hair cells, providing a possible target for hair cell regeneration in mammals. Groves, a 1996–1997 and 2012 ERG scientist, in a paper coauthored by the HRP’s Litao Tao, Ph.D., also showed it is possible to design gene therapies for the ear that are carefully targeted at supporting cells.
In a study of elementary school age children, 2015 ERG scientist Beula Magimairaj, Ph.D., who was funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance, found that working memory capacity plays a significant role for the comprehension of sentences with high cognitive demand.
Timothy Balmer, Ph.D., a 2025–2026, 2022–2023, and 2017 ERG scientist, tested the six most commonly available adeno-associated virus (AAV) serotypes to understand which works best for delivering genetic instructions to specific brain cells. He also detailed a class of neurons that may compensate for age-related loss of vestibular function to maintain balance performance in older animals.
The HRP’s Ksenia Gnedeva, Ph.D., revealed a class of DNA control elements known as “enhancers” that, after injury, amplify the production of a protein called ATOH1, which in turn induces a suite of genes required to create sensory cells of the inner ear in zebrafish.
A 2024–2025 ERG scientist and Elizabeth M. Keithley, Ph.D. Early Stage Investigator Award recipient, Nicole Jiam, M.D., whose grant was generously supported in part by Susan and Steve Kaufman, showed that a simple cost assessment method allows for a detailed step-by-step analysis of a hearing care procedure and its costs, which helps identify opportunities to reduce fees and streamline processes. Jiam also showed the potential of machine learning to predict who will benefit the most from cochlear implantation and also proposed an adjustment to current speech-focused performance metrics for CIs, by incorporating music perception in order to fully measure cochlear implant success.
2023 ERG scientist George Burwood, Ph.D., created a new advanced imaging model to examine inner ear scarring that, aided by machine learning, outperformed previous state-of-the-art models predicting cochlear implant success outcomes. The study was coauthored by 2012–2013 ERG scientist Lina Reiss, Ph.D.
2019 ERG scientist Vijaya Prakash Krishnan Muthaiah, Ph.D., who was generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance, showed how blast injuries disrupt the brain’s natural ability to manage stress and inflammation on the cellular level.
2023–2024 ERG scientist Francisco Barros-Becker, Ph.D., detailed the multiple mechanisms behind how aminoglycoside antibiotics are able to kill hair cells, which may provide new potential therapeutic avenues to make these important drugs safer.
Megan Beers Wood, Ph.D., a 2022–2023 ERG scientist generously funded by Hyperacusis Research, showed how a mutated nicotinic receptor delivered by AAV into healthy ears can help prevent permanent auditory damage caused by loud noise and accelerate hearing recovery.
2022–2023 ERG scientist Subong Kim, Ph.D., found that measuring brainstem responses is a novel way to predict who will benefit from noise reduction technology in hearing aids. The study’s coauthor Hari Bharadwaj, Ph.D., is a 2015 ERG scientist who was generously funded by Royal Arch Research Assistance. Kim also showed how a brain response called the neural signal-to-noise ratio effectively predicted how well people understood speech in noise.
The HRP’s Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., a 2007 ERG scientist, identified how two distinct genes guide the regeneration of sensory cells in zebrafish, which may help guide regenerative medicine in mammals, including humans.
HRP member Stefan Heller, Ph.D., a 2001–2002 ERG scientist, showed that supporting cells in the avian inner ear uses two regeneration strategies: Some divide to create new hair cells, while other supporting cells transform directly into functional hair cells without cell division. Mammals possess nearly identical cell types, but these fail to activate.
2024–2025 ERG scientist Wei Sun, Ph.D., showed that a single variant in the Foxg1 gene can affect how the brain processes sounds and lead to a hyperacusis, or a heightened sensitivity to sound. He was generously funded by Hyperacusis Research, as was study coauthor Senthilvelan Manohar, Ph.D., a 2017 ERG scientist.
Xiying Guan, Ph.D., a 2016 ERG scientist generously funded by Hyperacusis Research, created a new computer model that accurately represents the bone conduction of sound vibrations in the human middle ear.
Nicole T. Jiam, M.D., a 2024–2025 ERG scientist, suggested that success metrics for single-sided deafness patients who received a cochlear implant include sound quality and music perception.
Thanks to you, these and other HHF-funded scientists are continuing to discover life-changing breakthroughs to better prevent and treat hearing loss, tinnitus, and related conditions. Thank you for your interest and generosity.
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