 VIP, November 1997
Dr. Matthew Kelley
H.E.A.R.'s VIP of the month honor goes to Dr. Matthew Kelley for his
dedication and on going research in the field of hearing restoration.
As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Matthew Kelley first became
involved in biological laboratory research on the hearing and communication
of blind fish. After receiving his Bachelor's degree from Cornell, Kelley
continued to study hearing and communication in fish on a graduate level.
He received a Master' s degree from the School of Oceanography at the
University of Rhode Island and conducted further research at the University
of Hawaii. In 1988 he entered a Doctoral program in neuroscience at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There, his research centered
on the examination of how hearing develops in the inner ears of mammals,
including humans. The findings from this research are detailed in his
dissertation entitled "The Role of Environmental Cues During the
Development of the Organ of Corti in Mice".
In 1996, Dr. Kelley accepted a faculty position in the Department of
Cell Biology at the Medical School of Georgetown University in Washington,
D.C. At Georgetown, Kelley plans to continue his research on the formation
and regeneration of the microscopic hair cells in the ears of mammals,
including humans. In these tiny cells sound is detected and converted
into signals that can be understood by the brain. Unfortunately, these
delicate cells are easily damaged or destroyed by exposure to loud noises,
and do not regrow naturally; thus, the damage leads to progressive hearing
loss. Recently, Kelley has made advances in understanding how hair cells
are formed and has been able to demonstrate that the development, and
possible regeneration, of these cells can be influenced by the use of
drugs. These advances have been presented in two publications, "The
developing organ of Corti contains retinoic acid and forms supernumerary
hair cells in response to exogenous retinoic acid in culture" in
the journal Development in 1993 and "Replacement of hair cells after
laser irradiation in cultured organs of Corti from embryonic and neonatal
mice" in the Journal of Neuroscience in 1995. Although it is not
yet possible to regenerate human hair cells through drug therapy, these
studies demonstrate the existence of that possibility.
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