SIU Med School Receives NIH Grant to Study Hearing Loss

A research scientist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a two-year federal grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study age-related hearing loss and how it can best be treated. Total budget for the grant is $126,378.

Jeremy G. Turner, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology, is the principal investigator for the project. The study will examine how neurons in the aged mouse brain change when sound is reintroduced after a long period of hearing loss. The goal is to discover why elderly patients often have difficulty adjusting to hearing aids. This research has important implications for future development of more effective treatments for elderly patients with hearing loss. This is Turner's first NIH grant.

Turner joined SIU's faculty in 2003. He earned his doctoral and master's degrees at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (1999, 1997). He earned his bachelor's degree at Illinois College (IC) in Jacksonville (1995) and was named IC's Young Alumnus of the Year in 2002.

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