This week, we had a very exciting workshop in the lab, focused on the ear anatomy.
As part of the TRIP program, our new PhD candidate, Suyash Mehta, was joined by Dr. Cushla McGoverin and our summer student, Sherlly Christine. Together, we worked through temporal bone (i.e. the part of skull that includes ear) dissection in sheep in our lab space, while also learning how the sheep ear compares with the human ear through models and short presentations. It was a hands-on way to build confidence with anatomy, and to connect what we see in animal models to what matters for human hearing research.
We started by spending two days covering human anatomy, led by Mr. Steven Tran. After that, we had time “playing” (in the best educational sense) with endoscopes, looking through the ear canals of both a human ear model and a sheep ear model with help from Ms Song Paek. From there, we moved into the dissection procedure and practiced the steps needed to extract the inner ear from a sheep skull.
Work like this always leaves many of us with a renewed appreciation of how small and delicate the hearing organ is, and how physically challenging it can be to access. That challenge sits right at the heart of inner ear biomedical therapeutics: delivering treatment is not just about designing the right drug or device, but also about finding safe and practical ways to reach the inner ear in the first place.
Beyond the technical learning, it was also a great exchange of knowledge and a chance to strengthen our team workflow. Every workshop helps us understand each other’s strengths a bit more, and we can feel the collaboration growing.
Dr. McGoverin and Suyash also bring strong photonics and biophotonics expertise—using light-based technologies to solve biological problems—and we are excited to see how their skills will shape the next stages of our program.
