eAudiology

Lisa Cunningham, PhD is the Scientific Director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the 27 institutes that comprise the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Dr. Cunningham was trained clinically as an audiologist before obtaining a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Virginia. She did a post-doctoral fellowship in auditory neuroscience at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her lab conducts basic, translational, and clinical studies on sensory hair cell degeneration and hearing loss in the mature inner ear and develops therapeutic strategies to safeguard hearing. Her basic science studies examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie sensory hair cell death and survival, and her translational studies use this mechanistic knowledge to guide the rational design of therapies aimed at preventing hearing loss in humans. Clinical studies in her lab test the efficacy of these potential therapeutic strategies. Of particular interest is the development of treatments aimed at protecting the hearing of patients receiving therapeutic drugs that cause hearing loss, which include some antibiotics and some anti-cancer drugs.