Drs. Andy Groves and Neil Segil have teamed up to break new ground in the field of hearing regeneration research.
“Because of the promise that hair cell regeneration in birds holds for the possibility of regeneration in humans, House Ear Institute (HEI) decided to recruit scientists to work on this issue,” says Groves. “I was interested in nervous system development and with HEI, I’ve refined my interest to unexplored ear development.”
Groves began his postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology. In 1999, he joined HEI and now heads the Section on Molecular Development. He is involved in projects researching cellular and molecular mechanisms of inner ear, ear development and hearing regeneration, his “50/50 collaboration with Dr. Segil.”
Segil, section chief of Cell Growth and Differentiation at HEI, has a biochemistry background and formerly had no plans to research hearing health. A conference featuring David Lim, HEI’s director of research, led to an introduction that changed his life and his work.
“I had never worked on the ear before they recruited me,” says Segil. His focus quickly shifted from cell biology to cell cycle regulation as it relates to the inner ear, hearing loss and regeneration. His 10-year relationship with HEI has been spent on researching the developing inner ear, inner ear sensory hair cells, and new research in cell cycle regulation during the development and regeneration of the inner ear.
Amazingly, the two scientists come together on a daily basis to collaborate on multiple turns. They not only work the research project together, they write papers together and supervise six postdoctoral fellows together.
Segil expresses his sympathy for his underlings, joking, “They have two bosses rather than one!”
Of their successful collaboration
Segil comments, “We are in the same location with a mutual interest that grew and spawned new projects and continued to expand due to that proximity and shared interest.”
Speaking alternately, Segil and Groves both say, “We share fully in ideas... And directing personnel... And obtaining funding... Normally, one scientist creates and solicits help... In our case, it is a 50/50 collaboration.”
Groves continues: “We think up projects together, write grants, write papers together, take turns in speaking engagements. It is joint collaboration in the fullest sense of the word.”
When asked how they are able to work so well together without professional jealousy issues, Segil deadpans, “We are both completely ego-less.”
After the laughter subsides Groves adds, “One reason we have been successful so far is that our egos are of comparable sizes and are sensitive to each other,” which is followed by another spout of laughter.
The results of the collaboration make for serious business, however. Together Segil and Groves published a paper in the June 2006 issue of Nature, which explained how understanding hair cell regeneration as it affects hearing in fish, frogs, birds and reptiles has brought us one step closer to discovering how to help humans regenerate their hearing hair cells.
Among the most significant of their discoveries is a technique involving jellyfish and mice. Dr. Groves explains: “We used genetic engineering to create a strain of mice that contained a gene for a green fluorescent protein from jellyfish. We put the jellyfish DNA into the mice where it created fluorescent green, living, supporting cells. A machine called a fluorescent-activated cell sorter separated the mice’s green cells from the nongreen cells with a low-power laser.” The researchers then moved the live green cells back into a culture dish to grow them. The good news is those cells were then able to divide and turn into hair cells.
“Regenerated hair cells from a mouse mean that these cells in mammals, if manipulated, retain a latent capacity to turn into hair cells,” says Groves. “Now we can begin asking the questions: ‘Why does this happen in a culture dish and not in an animal? How do you get it to happen in a living animal?’ We will answer these questions as the research progresses.”
There is an unnecessary roadblock, however, to finding the answers. Groves and Segil echo, “If you don’t have the money, you can’t do the research.”
Unfortunately, this is the case for their current study of hair cell regeneration. They have had to cut back on the progress of the research since the grant they had from the National Organization for Hearing Research (NOHR) ran out in 2006. According to Groves, NOHR did something that a government grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would not do: “NOHR took a risk and funded a speculative project. The project we proposed was preliminary and we were telling them, ‘If you give us the money we will create this technology.’ This sort of speculative proposal was unlikely to have been funded by NIH, which often requires scientists to demonstrate the feasibility of a project first. It took three years to develop techniques just to get those cells to regenerate in the dish.”
Segil agrees: “We were not far enough into the work to give a timeline. And a timeline is generally needed to get a government grant.”
“Right now, we need to be able to manipulate the processes and try them in animals and then way, way down the line, in humans,” Groves adds. “You must realize that science progresses in incremental breakthroughs. It builds on what comes before. One research project seldom represents a single breakthrough. A long-term goal is the proof of the principle, then solving the problem.”
That is why private funding, like that which Deafness Research Foundation provides, is crucial to research work in early stages such as Groves’ and Segil’s project. Since government grants fund projects which are closer to the end result, the scientific community relies on private funding to jump-start the early work that results in new techniques, new discoveries in the body and new building blocks of information which provide the long-term results of specific cures, necessary technology and repairing and restoring processes.
With a positive attitude and a need for answers, Groves and Segil continue to collaborate on the current research project while searching for new funding to finance costly needs of research technology and processes. Both Segil and Groves are eager to know more about what controls and causes cell division and the processes that turn certain cells in mammals into hearing hair cells – essential steps to hearing hair cell regeneration in humans. Yet the echo resounds, “If you don’t have the money, you can’t do the research...”
