A University of Queensland researcher has received a second prestigious research award within several months to study issues associated with hearing loss.
Dr Jim Pickles, head of the Hearing Unit within the University's Vision, Touch and Hearing Research Centre, has been selected as the 1998 Australia France Foundation Fellow under the Bede Morris Scheme.
The fellowship comprises grant-in-aid of $7160 for collaborative work with Professor Remy Pujol at the CHU Hopital St-Charles, Montpellier in a study of mechanisms of pathology and repair in the inner ear.
Dr Pickles said the project would examine the expression of molecules that were potentially involved in the repair of nerve fibres after damage to the nerve supply of the inner ear.
Earlier this year Dr Pickles received a five-year, $750,000 senior research fellowship to study deafness from one of Australia's largest medical bequests, the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation.
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.
For more information, contact Dr Pickles (telephone 3365 4125).
