Administrative Shell

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Research Strategy: Significance: The Administrative Shell of the Sensory Mechanisms Research Core Center will support and foster close interactions among Core Center Directors, Core Users, central Administration and other elements of the Johns Hopkins University through a number of active mechanisms and already existing relationships. Both the Center for Hearing and Balance, and the Center for Sensory Biology involve their members in academic programs, regular research meetings, and fund-raising efforts. The Center for Hearing and Balance maintains a T32 graduate student and postdoctoral training grant (directed by E. Young, assisted by P. Fuchs), teaches a two-semester course EN 580.625 "Structure and Function of the Auditoiy and Vestibular Periphery", runs a weekly research seminar, and holds daily lunchtime gatherings of available staff. The Center for Sensory Biology holds quarteriy research colloquia, monthly 'chalk talks' by member faculty and teaches a spring semester course to Biology Department undergraduates, AS.080.322 "Cellular and Molecular Biology of Sensation". Through the shared use of Histology and Engineering resources the Users lab will have a common ground for meeting and interchange. To further these interactions, the P30 will continue its 'post-ARO poster session' at which participants get another chance to see their colleagues' presentations one Thursday evening in February with pizza. Each of the Engineering and Histology Cores will have independent procedures for communication among User labs and feedback (see those sections). In addition. The P30 Directors will hold a feedback meeting each trimester at which User labs will be invited to suggest improvements to Core functions and resources. Finally, the P30 Admin Shell provides funds for 1-2 speakers each year for each of the Engineering and Histology Cores. These speakers are chosen for their novel technical and/or scientific discoveries relevant to the Core's activities. For example, previous years' series have included Lisa Olson, Bev Wright, Bechara Kachar, Isreal Nelkin, Kari Kandler and Lisa Goodrich among others. These 'special speakers' are chosen by the Core Directors specifically, but are included within the weekly Center for Hearing and Balance seminar series which members of of the User labs attend. The P30 Research Core has facilitated interdepartmental communication in a variety of ways. For example, by providing partial support for the electron microscope in the Ophthalmology department the Histology Core has fostered strongly collegial relations with members of that research group. The P30 has significant impact within the wider department of Otolaryngology-HNS. Dr. Mohamed Lehar is supported in part by Oto-HNS funds and thereby manages the temporal bone laboratory in which surgical training is conducted. He additionally assists clinician-scientists such as Drs. Howard Francis and Wade Chien who are undertaking a re-organization and digitization of the George Nager temporal bone collection. The participation of P30 faculty in the Center for Sensory Biology has particulariy wide impact on the basic sciences of the School of Medicine. Through this consortium research into inner ear and chemical senses is brought to the attention of the wider neuroscience and molecular genetics community. The Center for Sensory Biology also adds to the integration of P30 labs with School of Medicine administration, with attendant benefits. A good example is the donation of research space for the laboratory of Dr. Andy Lane in the new Ranges Research Building (he quickly outgrew his original lab en Ross 8). Although this was formally an agreement between Otolaryngology and the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences, the easy negotiations and rapidly-reached agreement reflected the good relations established by Fuchs and Reed with Desiderio, director of the IBBS. Finally it should be noted that P30 operations succeed in no small part through the warmly collegial relations among the directors. Fuchs, Yeung and May have enjoyed their partnership in the Center for Hearing and Balance since 1995. Fuchs and Reed worked together with other colleagues to compete for and win funding to establish the Center for Sensory Biology (CSB) in 2005. They continue their teamwork as Director (Reed) and co-director (Fuchs) of the CSB, and with fellow CSB members develop new initiatives for that program.