Kazuaki Homma, PhD
“Numerous genetic variants have been found in over one hundred genes that are associated with various forms of hearing loss. Defining their pathological roles is crucial for developing clinical strategies against hereditary hearing loss. AHRF seed money is helping scientists deepen our understanding of how normal hearing is maintained and how it is impaired.”
—Kazuaki Homma, PhD
Kazuaki Homma, PhD, is an asset to the AHRF Research Committee, bringing extensive research experience with specific expertise in biochemistry and biophysics.
Homma received his PhD degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where his thesis research focused on myosin motors. He joined Dr. Peter Dallos’ lab at Northwestern University as a post-doc, where he started hearing research with a main focus on prestin (SLC26A5), the voltage-driven motor protein essential for exquisite sensitivity and frequency selectivity of mammalian hearing. Homma is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, where he continues his research on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying normal hearing. Currently, his research efforts are focused on functional characterization of deafness-associated nonsense and missense variants found in SLC12A2, SLC26A4, SLC26A5, and KCNQ4. Homma is a Fellow of the Hugh Knowles Center for Clinical Basic Sciences in Hearing and its Disorders. He has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.