ARO Member News

July 2015

In This Issue
NEW ABSTRACT DEADLINE!
Abstracts for the ARO 2016 Midwinter meeting will be due on
September 15, 2015.

 

 

 Save the Date 

ARO 39th

MidWinter Meeting  

 

February 20-24, 2016

 

Manchester Grand Hyatt

San Diego, CA

USA

 

 

spARO Update:

spARO logo  

 


The 2016 iPad winner, David Little, with spARO Exiting Chair Will Hamlet.


Facebook page.
In Memorium

Moise H. Goldstein Jr. 1927-2015

 

Dr. Moise H. Goldstein Jr., a retired member of both the Electrical Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering departments of Johns Hopkins University, passed away on Saturday April 9, 2015, at age 88. Dr. Goldstein was instrumental in the founding of the Neural Encoding Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins Medical School where his contributions ranged from facilitating basic research to helping deaf children communicate with sound in the era prior to cochlear implants. He also championed the nascent undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Department on the JHU Homewood Campus.

___________________

Michael L. Weiderhold, Ph.D.


Michael L. Wiederhold, Ph.D., passed away in January of this year. Michael was best known for his work on the effects of efferent stimulation on auditory nerve activity and the development of otoacoustic emissions as a clinical tool. He also made significant contributions to understanding the development of the vestibular system in normal, hypergravity and microgravity.  His experiments were included in three payloads on the Space Shuttle. He retired in 2004 as Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas.




 

It may feel like mid summer is too early to think about mid winter, but we are already making plans for the 2016 Midwinter Meeting.  For news about the 2016 meeting (make sure to note the new abstract deadline!), reports from the 2015 meeting, and other ARO news, read on.

I look forward seeing you in sunny San Diego!

Barbara G. Shinn-Cunningham, PhD  

ARO Editor

Letter from the Past President

 

The ARO held its 38th Midwinter meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, February 21-25. The Program Committee, chaired by Ruth Litovsky, worked tirelessly to shape a high-content meeting with over 1,000 submitted presentations, 17 symposia, and three workshops. Despite opening with a blizzard, there were more registrants than ever. The Presidential symposium brought together an eclectic mix of speakers to celebrate the fascinating diversity of models in hearing and vestibular biology. Our first Public Lecture event, held in the National Aquarium, highlighted the use of sound in animal navigation: ARO member Cynthia Moss led with those star performers, echolocating bats, and our guest speaker, Daniel Kish, who is blind, gave a remarkable demonstration of how humans can also use reflected sound to sense objects.  

The 2015 ARO Award of Merit was presented to Tom Friedman of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) for pioneering research in the genetics of hearing and deafness. Tom delivered a thought-provoking exposition on the scientific method, with references to Jules Verne and to his own exotic adventures in Bali in pursuit of a deafness gene. This year's ceremonies included tributes to Geraldine Dietz Fox in honor of her remarkable achievements in promoting hearing research. Gerry was instrumental in the establishment of NIDCD in 1988, and founded the private National Organization for Hearing Research (NOHR), which supported innovative projects and the Burt Evans Young Investigator Award. Gerry has retired the NOHR and established an endowment at Johns Hopkins that will continue to fund the Young Investigator Award: the 2015 Geraldine Dietz Fox Young Investigator Award was made to Dr. Alan Cheng of Stanford for his achievements in hair cell regeneration.  

 

ARO members started several ventures this past year, including enhancing the website, which we hope will grow organically into a key source of information and interaction; arranging for mutual registration with future meetings of the National Hearing Conservation Association; tracking ARO membership trends; evolving arrangements for meeting day care; and planning future public events. Support from our partners at Talley Management, led by Haley Brust and Danielle Barsuglia, was valuable and invariably good-humored. Special thanks to those who are moving on after unstinting service: Jay Rubinstein (Past President), Barbara Canlon (Councilor), Linda Hood (Editor), Anne Luebke (External Relations), and Will Hamlet (spARO).  

 

Our 39th MidWinter meeting will be February 20-24, 2016, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. Larry Lustig will preside, and the weather will be perfect.

 

Ruth Anne Eatock, PhD  

ARO Past President

 

Greetings from the new ARO Website Editor!

When was the last time you visited the ARO website? What information were you looking for on the website? Did you find the information easily?

ARO Council has created the post of Web Editor to oversee our web site and ensure that it serves our community. As the newly appointed ARO Web Editor, I am eager to get your input to ensure that the digital presence of ARO adds value to our members. I have formed a working group including volunteers from the Publications (Maria Chait) and spARO (Nate Zuk) committees to work with me in this effort.

The ARO website has the potential to help our constituents to be better connected with each other as well as providing a platform to raise awareness of our research to the general public. Over the coming months, the new Web Committee will work closely with the ARO Editor (Barbara Shinn-Cunningham) and Council to develop and curate and enhance our online presence towards these ends.

To do this effectively, we need your input.

Please visit  
www.aro.org and then let us know how the website can better serve you at [email protected] 
 . 
I would like to thank our predecessors (ad hoc Website Committee: Barbara Canlon, Ruth Anne Eatock, Linda Hood, Ruth Litovsky, Dan Polley and Nate Zuk as well as the Talley team) for launching our new website last September. I look forward to serving the ARO community by building on their fine efforts.

Adrian KC Lee, Sc.D. 
ARO Web Editor
2016 Award of Merit

The ARO is delighted to announce that the winner of the Award of Merit for 2016 will be Prof. Geoffrey A. Manley, currently at the University of Oldenburg. Manley and his colleagues have used the diversity of middle ears, cochlear anatomy and physiology in lizards and birds to analyze the evolution of hearing and to show how structure correlates with function in the middle ear and cochlea. A fundamental contribution was the demonstration that many of the characteristics of the mammalian cochlea are found in non-mammals, including sharp frequency tuning, sensitivity to soft sounds, tonotopic organization, two-tone interactions, otoacoustic emissions, and the different roles of the subtypes of hair cells (inner vs. outer, short vs. tall, etc.). By this work, they showed convincingly that cochlear amplification and many other features of hearing are ancestral for vertebrates. Manley has also helped to bridge understanding of the paleontology and function of the middle and inner ears of mammals for the benefit of the auditory community. For these and other contributions to the understanding of cochlear function,the ARO is pleased to recognize Geoffrey Manley with the Award of Merit.

spARO Report 38th Annual MidWinter Meeting Baltimore February 2015

 

Continuing an Annual MidWinter Meeting tradition, the student, postdoc, and medical resident chapter of ARO (spARO) organized a series of events that connected scientists ranging in experience level from undergraduate research assistant to emeritus professor. The much-anticipated Social was complemented with the Young Investigator Lunch with Dr. Daniel Tollin, a "Communicate Your Science" workshop hosted by Dr. Allison Coffin, a Poster Blitz, and 8 interactive sessions as part of the Mentoring Program.

 

In an effort to stay connected between meetings, we also, for the first time, collected attendees' email addresses - we intend to send out a newsletter twice a year containing not only important information regarding the society, but also professional opportunities (e.g., grant deadlines).

 

After presenting spARO's goals and introducing its leadership team at the Town Hall Meeting, one lucky attendee was chosen to receive a brand-new iPad mini 3 Wi-Fi 16 GB, sponsored by A-M Systems. (see sidebar for photo)  

 

As a final remark, I want to thank the other members of the 2014/2015 steering committee, including Anna Diedesch, Nichole Foster, Ross Maddox, David Morris, Zahra Sayyid, Nate Zuk, and Will Hamlet, who did a great job and have made it easy for me to continue the excellent work of my predecessors. The new members of this year's steering committee can be seen on the spARO page (where you also find the full version of this report and the link to our facebook group).

 

Lukas Landegger

spARO Chair-Elect


ARO 2016 - Invited Symposia and Workshops

 

PRESIDENTIAL SYMPOSIUM 

 

SYMPOSIA

1.  The role of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1hmrs) in noise and blast-induced neurotrauma  

2.  Wnt signaling in development and disease

3.  Auditory nociception and pain hyperacusis

4.  Hearing loss and human genetics: science, policy and beyond

5.  Active role of glia in auditory physiology       
6.  Optogenetic approaches for auditory research and development of prostheses. 

7.  Neural underpinnings of auditory perception: insights from development.

8.  The blood-labyrinth-barrier in inner ear function

9.  Mechanisms of fast auditory signaling

 

10. Stress signaling pathways in sensorineural hearing loss: trends and challenges in translational research       

 

YOUNG INVESTIGATOR SYMPOSIA

11. Active auditory processing: Basics mechanisms, individual differences and clinical applications:

 

12. Zebrafish as a Model for Hearing and Balance           

 

WORKSHOPS

13. The Career Less Travelled: From Laboratory to .com

 

14. Translating science to medicine: an update on Phase 2 clinical trials in specific otologic indications

 

15. Pharmaceutical Interventions for Hearing Loss: Guidance for Study Design

 

16. Poster Blitz