By Stefan Heller

From August 8 – August 28, 2015, I co-directed the “Biology of the Inner Ear (BIE)” course at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA together with Dr. Paul Fuchs from Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Jennifer Jones Rowsell from Washington College.

18 students were competitively chosen from a much larger pool to be taught by more than 30 international faculty.  The course provided lectures and hands-on laboratory training (often way beyond midnight) in specialized methods to meet the challenges of inner ear research.  A major focus of the course was to provide students who just joined the field of inner ear biology with a comprehensive toolset to tackle different animal models as well as specialized imaging and physiology techniques. Topics ranged from cellular biology, genetics, and electrophysiology of individual sensory hair cells and neurons to central auditory pathways, hearing loss, tinnitus, balance disorders, and evolution of our senses of hearing and balance.

I personally hope that the head start we provided for 18 young investigators in our field will pay off big time in the long run. The BIE course is offered every other year since 2007 and previous students already had impact on the field, nationally as well as internationally.  Several BIE alumni now have their own research laboratories and they all can probably attest best to the positive influence of the intense training they received during their 3 weeks at Cape Cod.

I also thank Dr. Mirko Scheibinger of my own lab who invested 3 ½ weeks of his precious time to serve as one of six course assistants who helped to run the course smoothly, making it a once-a-life experience for the 18 students.  Likewise, I thank all the other course assistants and all faculty who donated their time to this unique training endeavor. I am looking forward to teaming up with Paul and Jen again in 2017 for BIE2017!