Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the lab on the other side. And that lab belongs to Doug Cotanche, Ph.D.
The director of Research in the Department of Otolaryngology at Children’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., Cotanche believes the commonplace barnyard fowl may be the key to improving hearing health in humans. By his own admission, Cotanche is not a “high-powered science guy” and says that it's important to him that life in his lab be fun. However, when it comes to the significant role of the chicken in preventing deafness in humans, Cotanche’s research into hair cell regeneration is no laughing matter.
Loss of the tiny hairs inside the ears (cilia) has long been directly linked to hearing loss. The cilia are instrumental in trapping and funneling sound into the inner ear, or cochlea. When noise, drugs and other things toxic to the ears kill the hair cells, hearing loss results because hair cells cannot be replaced. Enter the chicken.
“Birds are the only other vertebrates besides humans with cochlea,” explains Cotanche, “but we discovered that when bird hair cells are damaged, they can be replaced.” Cotanche and his team learned that when bird hair cells die, they send out signals to supporting cells to “rescue” them and more cells are made. Mammals do not have this ability but Cotanche is hopeful that within 20 years we will have a biological repair mechanism, modeled on chickens’ innate abilities, that will successfully regenerate hair cells in human ears.
Cotanche owes much of his success with hair cell regeneration to the Deafness Research Foundation (DRF), which funded several grants for his work in the 1980s. “Those grants funded our original discovery of hair cell regeneration,” says Cotanche. “DRF was incredibly critical in providing the seed money to allow that project to go forward. Like many people in this field, I'm indebted to them.”
In addition to his research work, Cotanche teaches several classes at the Harvard University School of Science and Medicine. “I absolutely treasure mentoring students,” he says, recalling how faculty mentors were instrumental in his own life.
When not in his lab, Cotanche enjoys hiking and mountain climbing with his best girl, Rosie, a golden-haired canine beauty, favoring Massachusetts state parks and the Adirondack Mountains. He also hangs out with his 12-year-old, Calvin, and twin 10-year-olds, Molly and Maggie, who are into sports, video games and music. Cotanche says he is constantly reminding his children that if he can hear the lyrics blaring from their MP3 players, then the volume is too loud.
Cotanche has his own reasons for keeping his hearing healthy and intact: to stay in tune. A tenor, he has sung in choirs since high school and still sings regularly with his church choir and a professional chorus.
In and out of the lab, Cotanche wants to “make a difference and add something of value to the world.” Conducting research that may enable our bodies to heal hearing loss certainly qualifies. n
