Suzanne M Leal
Columbia University, NY·Genetics
Hearing loss is the most common sensory deficit in the world. It ranges from deafness present at birth, which affects 1 to 2 of every 1,000 newborns, to the gradual hearing loss that comes with age.
- Fields
Genetics
Public Health & Epidemiology
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
hearing loss
hearing impairment
tinnitus
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Develop and release Tractor-RVA, open-source software that tests rare genetic variants by ancestry in people of mixed ancestry, and apply it to African-ancestry and Latino participants.
- Identify new genetic associations, including rare and structural variants, for age-related hearing loss and tinnitus using whole-genome data from All of Us and the UK Biobank across five ancestry groups.
- Test causal links between age-related hearing loss or tinnitus and conditions such as dementia, depression, and diabetes, using bidirectional and multivariate Mendelian randomization.
- Identify new genes for autosomal recessive nonsyndromic hearing impairment by sequencing families from Nigeria, Pakistan, and Hungary and checking that candidate variants track with deafness in each family.
- Confirm that newly found deafness genes cause disease, and learn how they work in the inner ear, using expression and functional studies in zebrafish and mice.
More about the research
Many genes shape hearing, but most remain unknown, and most past studies included mainly people of European ancestry. This research uses genetics to find causes of hearing loss in diverse populations. One project studies large population datasets to understand age-related hearing loss and tinnitus. The other searches for single genes behind inherited childhood deafness in families.
Why it matters
Finding the genes behind hearing loss could improve genetic screening, so deaf children are diagnosed early and get support for speech and language development. Studying Nigerian families may improve diagnosis for African Americans, most of whom have West African ancestry. Work on age-related hearing loss and tinnitus could inform risk prediction, prevention, and treatment, and help reduce disparities in care.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lois Travis
Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis, IN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Track how cisplatin-related hearing loss and neuropathy change over time in testicular cancer survivors, using repeat audiometry and new physical and psychosocial measures to inform follow-up guidelines.
Kaixiong Ye
University of Georgia, GA·Genetics
Develop and apply statistical tests to detect genetic and polygenic responses to the Agricultural Revolution using ancient DNA, identifying adaptive variants whose mismatch with modern lifestyles may underlie today's common diseases.
Ryan D. Hernandez
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Genetics
Measure how race, ethnicity and genetic ancestry each contribute to molecular traits and to heart, lung, blood and sleep disorders, using TOPMed whole genome sequencing, RNA-seq gene expression and metabolomic data from over 180,000 people.
The school
Columbia University: 89 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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