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Dr. Alfons Ruesch
(1959-2002)
It is with great sadness that we note the death
of Dr. Alfons Ruesch, on February 21st, 2002, in
Tuebingen, Germany, after a long illness.
Alfons made enormous contributions to hair cell
research in the span of just seventeen years. He
began work in this area as a doctoral student with
Ulrich Thurm at the University of Muenster
(1985-1989). His intriguing thesis studies of hair
bundle mechanics and physiology in the semicircular
canal of the transparent eel show the combination
of technical innovation and biological insight that
was to be typical of all of Alfons' work.
In 1989, Alfons moved to a postdoctoral position
at the University of Sussex in Brighton, where he
worked with Ian Russell, Corné Kros and Guy
Richardson. There he did pioneering investigations
of the mechanoelectrical transduction channels of
hair cells in organotypic cultures of mouse organ
of Corti, including an influential study on the
blocking effects of amiloride and its
analogues.
In 1992, we were very fortunate to have Alfons
join us at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
He developed an in vitro preparation of a
vestibular organ, the neonatal mouse utricle, with
which he characterized voltage-gated ion channels
and how they change as the hair cells mature. This
preparation has become a significant tool for the
genetic and molecular characterization of hair cell
properties, and Alfons was generous in helping
others develop the methods in their
laboratories.
In 1996, Alfons returned to Germany, taking a
position in Peter Ruppersberg's group at the
University of Tuebingen. He quickly established
himself at the leading edge of combined
biophysical/genetic approaches to the inner ear. He
showed that the hair cell transduction channel is
neither a purinergic receptor nor the
amiloride-sensitive epithelial sodium channel, and
that thyroid hormone receptor is required for
normal developmental acquisition of voltage-gated
channels. Alfons helped to introduce zebrafish as a
model system for inner ear function by functionally
characterizing the first balance and hearing
mutants. In 2001, he received his habilitation and
a teaching award.
That Alfons made such significant contributions
to research and teaching while battling severe
health problems attests to his strength of
character. Those who had the pleasure of working
with Alfons also recall with affection his unique
blend of skepticism and modesty, of seriousness and
warmth.
Ruth Anne Eatock
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