Understanding Hearing Molecular Mechanisms: Advances Rooted in Hereditary Deafness
Abstract
An overview of the principles of acoustic signal processing underlying auditory scene analysis as well as perception of music and spoken language with emphasis on how the cochlea and auditory neurons operate will be presented. Major advances in deciphering molecular mechanisms of sound processing, based on mouse models for inherited human deafness forms, will then be illustrated, with special focus on the auditory mechanoelectrical transduction. Finally, the discovery of physiological properties of the auditory organ revealed by the study of mouse models lacking specific cochlear structures will be briefly discussed.
About the speaker
Prof. Christine Petit received her MD from Paris VI University in 1974 and while working at the Pasteur Institute, she was awarded PhD in Biochemistry from Paris VII University in 1982. She conducted postdoctoral research at the Basel Institute for Immunology and at the Gif/Yvette CNRS Center for Molecular Genetics.
Prof. Petit is currently head of the "Genetics and Physiology of Hearing" laboratory at the Pasteur Institute. She is also head of an INSERM UMRS research unit, in partnership with Paris VI University that includes teams based at the Pasteur Institute, at Trousseau Hospital, at Vision Institute, and at Bordeaux II University. In 2002, Prof Petit was appointed Professor to the Chair of Genetics and Cellular Physiology at the Collège de France. She is also Professor (top-ranking class) and Head of Neuroscience Department at the Pasteur Institute.
Prof. Petit has been honored with the Charles-Leopold Mayer Award from the French Academy of Sciences (1999), Ernst-Jung für Wissenschaft und Forschung Award (2001), L’Oréal-UNESCO "For Women in Science" Award (2004), “Recherche et Médecine” Award from the Institut des Sciences de la Santé (2004), "Freedom to Discover in Neuroscience" Award from Institut Bristol-Myers Squibb (2005), Louis-Jeantet de Médecine (2006), and the grand Prix INSERM de la Recherche Médicale (2007). Prof Petit was elected as EMBO member in 1996, to Academia Europaea in 1998, and to the French Academy of Sciences in 2002.
