A University of Queensland researcher has been awarded a five-year, $750,000 senior research fellowship to study deafness by one of Australia's largest medical bequests.
The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation made the award to Dr Jim Pickles, head of the Hearing Unit within the University's Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre.
According to Dr Pickles, all people go deaf to some extent as they age. Around one million Australians currently suffer hearing problems with 60,000 of these people experiencing severe hearing loss.
Dr Pickles' research concerns deafness caused by degeneration of some of the 15,000 tiny hair cells lining each cochlea - the spiral, hollow tube that detects sound inside the ear.
The cells cannot be replaced and degenerate over time through old age, long-term exposure to excessive noise, some medications and disease processes.
Previously funded by a three-year, $138,000 National Health and Medical Research Council grant, Dr Pickles' research aims to find ways of protecting the cells from degeneration.
'We want to identify the chemical signals that can stimulate receptors in the hair cells. The aim is to develop artificial ways of stimulating, and therefore preserving, the hair cells over time,' Dr Pickles said.
'In particular, we are studying the growth factors - the majority of which consist of polypeptides or chains of amino acids - that allow hair cells to be repaired within the ears of animals. This could lead to the development of growth factors for restoring or arresting hearing loss in humans.'
He said the growth factors could take the form of new drugs.
Dr Pickles' research team includes senior research officer, Dr Walter van Heumen and research assistant, Christina Claxton. A postdoctoral research fellow will soon be appointed.
The Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation awards are dedicated to promoting, maintaining and improving medical knowledge and education in Otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine) and the related surgical and paramedical fields.
Set up to honour the memory of her two husbands, Edward Roland Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams, the Foundation was created from the estate of Barbara Williams, of Charleston, South Carolina, following her death six years ago.
Dr Garnett Passe (1904-52) was born in South Africa, the son of an Australian. At an early age he returned to Australia with his family to live in Melbourne. In 1926, he graduated in dentistry from the University of Melbourne, later travelling to the United Kingdom to study medicine.
He eventually specialised in otolaryngology, attaining considerable eminence particularly as a pioneer in the surgical treatment of deafness.
His career was interrupted by service with the Royal Navy in World War II but when he resumed practice in London at the end of the war, he quickly established himself as an outstanding otolaryngologist earning an international reputation before his untimely death from a heart attack at age 48.
In 1968, Mrs Garnett Passe married retired New York stockbroker Rodney Williams and they made their home in Charleston, South Carolina. Mr Williams died in 1984, leaving a large trust to his widow.
In 1986 Mrs Williams established a trust fund to honour the memory of both husbands 'dedicated in perpetuity exclusively for charitable, scientific and educational purposes including the advancement in Australia and other countries of the specialty of otolaryngology and the related medical, surgical and paramedical fields'.
For more information, contact Dr Pickles (telephone 3365 4125).
