#  2026 World Hearing Day 

 





March 03, 2026

 

 

   ![David, ginnie and Corena](/sites/g/files/omnuum5491/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/2026-04/Hearing%20Day%202026.png?itok=T6TsmFS8) 

 

**Corena Loeb and Chin-Ju (Ginnie) Hu** are both sixth-year graduate students in the Harvard PhD Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT). Their dissertation advisor is [**Dr. David Corey,**](https://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/faculty-staff/david-corey) a professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School.

**Corena** is studying the biophysics of the bond between two proteins, PCDH15 and CDH23, that are essential for mechanotransduction by inner ear hair cells. These proteins constitute the tip link, a tiny string that conveys force produced by sound stimuli to an ion channel that opens to allow electric current to flow into hair cells, initiating the neural signal. Previous experiments from this laboratory using synthesized proteins suggested that the lifetime of the bond is just a few seconds under physiological conditions. Corena has generated a mouse model that lets her test that prediction in live hair cells. Understanding the bond will provide insight into how loud noise disrupts hair-cell function.

**Chin-Ju (Ginnie)** is developing gene therapy methods to treat a common mutation that causes profound deafness. A hereditary form of deafness known as DFNB1 is caused by mutations in the *GJB2* gene, which encodes a gap-junction protein that connects the inside of one cell to the inside of an adjacent cell. DFNB1 is by far the most common form of hereditary deafness, with over 3,000 children born with this form in the United States each year. One of the most common mutations in *GJB2* is 35delG, in which a “G” at position 35 in the DNA is missing, preventing cells from making the GJB2 protein. Together with scientists in the laboratory of Benjamin Kleinstiver at MGH, Ginnie is developing prime editor systems that replace the missing G in a cell’s DNA and allow normal GJB2 translation. She has made a mouse model with the 35delG mutation and has shown that the prime editor, delivered to mice with an AAV vector, can correct the DNA, prevent cochlear degeneration, and partially restore hearing.



 

 

 



 

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