Anil Akturk, Ph.D.

Hearing and balance depend on specialized sensory “hair” cells in the inner ear. Mechano-electrical transduction in hair cells occurs in actin-rich apical stereocilia assembled into an asymmetric hair bundle that responds to deflection in a directional manner. To this end, stereocilia placement and their graded elongation must be tightly regulated during development. Recently, we and others established that inhibitory G protein alpha (G⍺i) signaling is essential for polarized hair bundle morphogenesis.The regulation of the G⍺i signaling during and after the development of hair cells remain largely unknown. I am focusing mainly on finding the regulators of G⍺i pathway by using genetics, organ and cell culture, biochemistry and hearing tests.

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