research
Seed funding for projects across the entire spectrum of hearing and balance
Why I Appreciate My
#StartWithERG
By Gail M. Seigel, Ph.D.
I was immersed in science at a very early age. My parents are a retired pharmacist and a nurse so I grew up reading the Merck Index and MedicalSurgical Nursing books. When I was very young I wanted to be a veterinarian, but later realized I wanted to work with smaller creatures—cells. My doctorate is in microbiology/immunology, but when the time came for my postdoctoral fellowship, I found a very interesting lab studying retinal cell biology and pursued that. Once I arrived at the University at Buffalo, I encountered some wonderful scientists in the Center for Hearing and Deafness, led by Richard Salvi, Ph.D. We found many common points of interest that led to fruitful areas of research that continue to this day. My lab is known as the Ocular and Auditory Neuroscience Lab, as we combine the best of both worlds as part of the center. This Emerging Research Grant represents the first awarded to me for auditory neuroscience, planned in conjunction with colleagues at the center. As such it is a career milestone—important not only for our tinnitus project, but also because of the gravitas it provides my research program for future funding opportunities in the field of auditory neuroscience. In the short term, I hope that people living with hearing and balance conditions can find relief and comfort. In the long term, I hope that new treatments will emerge that will provide permanent solutions. Funding through the Emerging Research Grants program is an integral part of the pipeline from research idea to therapeutics.
Personal Connection It was about 10 years ago that I woke up one morning and noticed a sound that I hadn’t heard before. I was recovering from an upper respiratory infection, so I thought that maybe it was just congestion. But the sound persisted. It was especially troublesome in those quiet minutes (or hours) when I was trying to fall asleep at night. I made an appointment with an ENT (ear, nose, and throat specialist), but I couldn’t get in to see him for three months. As I waited I continued to be very disturbed by the sound. Fortunately an audiology graduate student at the center volunteered to do a hearing test. I was 34
hearing health
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