September 12, 2007

SIU Med School Receives Two National Grants to Study Hearing

Loss

A research scientist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded two national grants totaling $1.7-plus million.  Donald Caspary, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and SIUC distinguished scholar, is the principal investigator for both of the projects.  The results of the studies could lead to the development of new therapies for the treatment of tinnitus, and should improve the understanding of tinnitus and of the impact of age-related hearing loss on tinnitus.

A five-year federal grant has been awarded by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a division of the National Institutes of Health, to study the impact of aging on changes in the brain related to tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, a condition that plagues many people.  The research will examine the functional and molecular neurochemical changes between young and aged rats with and without behavioral evidence of tinnitus.  The total budget for the grant is $1,535,315.

A two-year grant has been awarded by Merck & Company, Inc., to test a potential new drug, gaboxadol, for a possible treatment for tinnitus.  The study will determine where in the brain the compound acts and how it affects some of the hearing pathways in the rat brain.  The total budget for the grant is $197,064.

Co-investigators for the projects are Thomas J. Brozoski, Ph.D., professor of surgery; Larry F. Hughes, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and surgery; and Jeremy G. Turner, Ph.D., part-time faculty member in surgery.  Staff working on the project include Lynne L. Ling, senior researcher, and Hongning Wang, graduate assistant, both in pharmacology.  Other SIU faculty members contributing to the research are Dr. Carol A. Bauer, associate professor of otolaryngology head and neck surgery, and Robert H. Helfert, Ph.D., associate professor of otolaryngology head and neck surgery and pharmacology.

Caspary's research has been funded for 30-plus years by NIDCD, totaling more than $5.2 million.  Caspary joined SIU's faculty in 1973.   He earned his doctoral degree in neurobiology at New York University (1971) and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at the State University of New York in Albany (1972).  He earned his master’s at Syracuse University in New York (1968) and his bachelor’s at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (1965).

-30-