Our research leads the way worldwide, at utilising state-of-the-art genomics and transcriptomics to identify genes and mechanisms that cause common forms of hearing loss, such as age-related hearing loss (ARHL), familial deafness and otosclerosis.

We apply our unique combination of skills, expertise and resources to discover the genetic factors responsible for increased risk of hearing loss in order to reveal its underlying molecules and pathways. We target these molecular pathways with therapeutic interventions to prevent or repair hearing loss.

Achievements and key projects:

• Identified novel genes linked to age-related hearing loss based on the analysis of 500,000 UK Biobank participants
• Linked hearing genetics and brain imaging to understand the association between hearing loss and dementia risk using Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) cohorts
• Identified novel genes linked to tinnitus in the UK Biobank Cohort

PhD students:

Letizia Vestito - Identifying deafness related genes from patients in the 100,000 Genomes Project (Supervisors: Gudrun Moore, Sally Dawson)

Key collaborators:

NIHR UCLH BRC Healthcare Engineering and Imaging theme and Kings College London

Recent Publications:

• Wells HRR, Abidin FNZ, Freidin MB, Williams FMK, Dawson SJ. Genome-wide association study suggests that variation at the RCOR1 locus is associated with tinnitus in UK Biobank. Sci Rep. 2021 Mar 19;11(1):6470. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85871-6. PMID: 33742053; PMCID: PMC7979698.
• Dunbar LA, Patni P, Aguilar C, Mburu P, Corns L, Wells HR, Delmaghani S, Parker A, Johnson S, Williams D, Esapa CT, Simon MM, Chessum L, Newton S, Dorning J, Jeyarajan P, Morse S, Lelli A, Codner GF, Peineau T, Gopal SR, Alagramam KN, Hertzano R, Dulon D, Wells S, Williams FM, Petit C, Dawson SJ, Brown SD, Marcotti W, El-Amraoui A, Bowl MR. Clarin-2 is essential for hearing by maintaining stereocilia integrity and function. EMBO Mol Med. 2019 Sep;11(9):e10288. doi: 10.15252/emmm.201910288. Epub 2019 Aug 26. PMID: 31448880; PMCID: PMC6728604.
• Wells HRR, Freidin MB, Zainul Abidin FN, Payton A, Dawes P, Munro KJ, Morton CC, Moore DR, Dawson SJ, Williams FMK. GWAS Identifies 44 Independent Associated Genomic Loci for Self-Reported Adult Hearing Difficulty in UK Biobank. Am J Hum Genet. 2019 Oct 3;105(4):788-802. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2019.09.008. Epub 2019 Sep 26. PMID: 31564434; PMCID: PMC6817556.
• Ingham NJ, Pearson SA, Vancollie VE, Rook V, Lewis MA, Chen J, Buniello A, Martelletti E, Preite L, Lam CC, Weiss FD, Powis Z, Suwannarat P, Lelliott CJ, Dawson SJ, White JK, Steel KP. Mouse screen reveals multiple new genes underlying mouse and human hearing loss. PLoS Biol. 2019 Apr 11;17(4):e3000194. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000194. PMID: 30973865; PMCID: PMC6459510.