ARO NEWS
Fall 1994

President's Report

It's nice to be able to start off a report with good news. Our grant has been funded! Thanks to Secretary-Treasurer Len Rybak and all the others who worked hard on the application, the ARO has been awarded an NIH grant to support the Midwinter Meeting for the next five years. The funds will be used to fund speakers for symposia, and to provide travel awards for residents, medical students, and minority trainees. This grant allows the ARO to plan efficiently and (dearer to the memberships' hearts) keep the registration fees for the meeting to a minimum. We all owe Len and the NIH a debt of gratitude. In addition, both the American Academy of Otolaryngology and the Deafness Research Foundation have agreed to support travel grants again next year, and thanks are due to both organizations for the continued generosity.

The results of the 1994 Midwinter Meeting questionnaire have been analyzed. As in the past, an overwhelming majority rated the science and organization of the meeting as excellent or good, with few responding acceptable or poor. However, out of 1,112 people in attendance, only 160 took the time to fill out the questionnaire. The Council uses the information provided by the questionnaire results to gauge opinion on the Midwinter Meeting and other important Association issues. Filling out the questionnaire is the best way to get your ideas heard. Read the column by the chair of the Long Range Planning Committee (Judy Dubno) in this issue of the ARO News for more questionnaire results and information on how the next Midwinter Meeting will be improved as a result of your comments.

As this report is being written, abstracts for the 1995 Midwinter Meeting are just beginning to come into the ARO Office. However, plans for special sessions to be held at the meeting are already well under way. All of these sessions were proposed by ARO members and reviewed by the ARO's Program Advisory Committee, who selected and then ranked the best of the proposals. Thanks to the NIH grant, we were able to fund all of the approved proposals.

Three half-day symposia have been planned. The first will review recent developments in the rapidly expanding area of cell adhesion molecules. Speakers, most from outside of the ARO, will review the various families of extracellular matrix proteins and adhesion molecules and describe their roles in such diverse biological processes as development, regeneration, cancer and inflammation. The second symposium will explore the issue of ethics in science. Speakers will discuss ethical issues that are critical to scientists, how ethics can be taught, and the role of organizations like the ARO in fostering scientific ethics. The third symposium will review how the integration of behavioral data with other neuroscience methods can lead to a more complete understanding of sensory processing in the nervous system. A panel of prominent speakers from the auditory and other sensory systems will provide examples of the power of systems biology.

Several evening workshops have also been organized. One will address the topic of genes and hearing impairment, with up-to-date reviews of both animal and human studies. A second workshop will cover recent developments in cochlear prosthetics. Finally, we will have a special tutorial on developments in information technology, especially information transfer between researchers.

There will also be several targeted sessions. One of these will focus on the physiology of the central auditory system, and will be dedicated to the memory of Yasuji Katsuki. A second will cover recent methodological developments in the analysis of human temporal bones, including the "Old Times Ears" project.

Now, if our application for good weather is as successful as our conference grant...

Allen F. Ryan, Ph.D.
President

Editor's Column

I was very pleased with the results of the 1994 questionnaire concerning the ARO NEWS. All of the suggestions were constructive and no one had any negative comments. The small (17) number of suggestions tended to fall into three categories. First, there were seven suggestions related to minor format changes, all of which already have been implemented. Second, there were two suggestions that concerned the Midwinter Meeting rather than the newsletter and these were forwarded to the Executive Council. The third category involved seven suggestions to expand the newsletter to include new sources of funding, recently published papers, committee reports, tutorials, etc. Most of these suggestions involved information that should be disseminated much quicker than the tri-annual publication of the newsletter. Therefore, I will try to develop a mechanism whereby this new information is "published" on the internet rather than in the ARO NEWS. Now that the ARO office has its own internet address, this format becomes feasible.

Incidentally, those of you who are "real" scientists must have noted that the number of suggestions I addressed is one short of the number submitted. One of the suggestions involved the development of a gossip and advice column. Shall I post a "Position Available" for Dear Abby?

Gerald R. Popelka, Ph.D.
Editor

Current Issues

Smith and Nephew Awards

Six residents in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery were chosen by a special review committee to receive cash awards and commemorative plaques donated by Smith and Nephew Richards Medical Company. These awards are given for the best research papers in otolaryngology submitted for the 1994 Research Forum, co-sponsored by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, and held in conjunction with the 98th Annual Meeting, September 18-21 in San Diego, California. This years winners are as follows:

1st Place, Basic Science: Douglas D. Backous, MD, Baylor College of Medicine, for Alpha-Difluoromethyl-ornithine Delays Behavioral Recovery and Induces Decompensation After Unilateral Labyrinthectomy.

2nd Place, Basic Science: Akira Ishiyama, MD, UCLA School of Medicine, for Subcellular Innovation Patterns of the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptidergic Efferent Terminals in the Chinchilla Vestibular Periphery.

3rd Place, Basic Science: Jose Fayad, MD, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, for Prefabricated Microvascular AutoGraft in Tracheal Reconstruction.

1st Place, Clinical Science: Michael P. Widick, MD, University of Miami Ear Institute, for Early Effects of Cerebellopontine Angle Compression on Rabbit DPOAEs: A Model for Monitoring Cochlear Function During Acoustic Neuroma Surgery.

2nd Place, Clinical Science: Daniel A. Leedy, MD, Oregon Health Sciences University, for Tumor Angiogenesis, the p53 Antigen, and Cervical Metastasis in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Tongue.

3rd Place, Clinical Science: Timothy L. Smith, MD, University of North Carolina, for Recovery of Eustachian Tube Function and Hearing Outcome in Patients with Cleft Palate.

Also announced was the recipient of the 1994 Academy Medical Student Research Prize: Andrew Harper, a fourth-year medical student at the University of North Carolina College of Medicine, for Nitric Oxide Synthase in the Rat Vestibular Ganglion.

Now in its 37th year, the Research Forum is a joint project of the Academy's Research Committee and the ARO. The 1994 Co-Chairs for the event are Perry M. Santos, MD, Southern Illinois University, Springfield, and Elizabeth Keithley, Ph.D., University of California at San Diego.

TDT-ARO Golf Classic

The 1st annual TDT-ARO Golf Classic was a huge success. The tournament, played at the beautiful Imperial Lakes Golf Club, gave all our distinguished players a chance to show off their golf talents to their colleagues, or to just show off! We had an international field of players who covered the skill-level spectrum. The exciting competition began with teams of four in a select-shot scramble format. The early favorites, Jack Mills' and Terry Dolan's teams, fell to a team of Korean surgeons led by Dr. Hee-Nam Kim, of Ajou University's College of Medicine. This team of surgeons brought our exciting day to an end as they won the tournament.

The 2nd annual TDT/ARO Golf Classic is scheduled for the Saturday before the ARO meeting, February 4, 1995, at 11:30 a.m. We invite you and your colleagues to join us for some friendly competition on the links. You don't have to play like a pro to join us for a good time. Make plans now. Applications should be included with this newsletter, or you can contact Damian Davis, Tucker-Davis Technologies, Voice: (904) 375-1623; FAX: (904) 375-4523; Email Quikki@ nervm. nerdc. ulf. edu.

Barany Society

Barany Society is an international interdisciplinary society which was founded in 1960, on the initiative of Dr. C.S. Hallpike and Professor C.O. Nylen, in order to honor the memory of the late Robert Barany, who was professor of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, from 1926 to 1936. Professor Barany was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1915 for his fundamental work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus.

The aim of the Barany Society is to facilitate contacts between scientists engaged in vestibular research and to stimulate otoneurological research. To qualify for membership, according to the bylaws, the applicant should be "active in otoneurology or vestibular experience in otoneurology or vestibular research." A recommendation for membership should be approved by one other member. Past presidents have been the tenured professors of otorhinolaryngology at the Uppsala University: Arne Sjoberg (1960-1967), Hans Engstrom (1968-1978), Jan Stahle (1979-1989), and the current president is Matti Anniko (1990- ).

Meetings have been held in various cities, including Amsterdam, Toronto, Strasbourg, Los Angeles, and London, to name a few. The forthcoming meeting will be held in Sidney in 1996. After changing the bylaws, it is stated that regular meetings of the Barany Society are held in Uppsala every sixth year.

At each regular meeting three awards, the Barany gold medal, the Hallpike-Nylen prize and the Hallpike-Nylen medal will be awarded. The Hallpike-Nylen prize is intended for clinical research. It has been awarded to Hans Kornhuber (1983), Setsuko Takemori (1985), Bernard Cohen (1987), Charles Markham (1990), Robert Baloh (1992) and David Zee (1994). The Hallpike-Nylen medal is intended for basic research with a preference for the younger members of the Society. The silver-plated medal has the picture of Barany on one side and the legend "Hallpike-Nylen medal" on the other. The Hallpike-Nylen medal was awarded for the first time in Tokyo (Volker Henn, 1990) and thereafter in Prague (Åke Flock, 1992) and Uppsala (Andreas Bohmer, 1994). The Barany gold medal has a history of its own and was founded in 1948 by the Medical Faculty, Uppsala University. Candidates for this award are proposed by a committee of three members of the medical Faculty in Uppsala, the tenured professors in otorhinolaryngology (chairman), ophthalmology and neurology. The Barany gold medal will be presented to "the author who during the last completed six-year period has published the most valuable work on the vestibular apparatus in the widest sense of this term". The names of the nine medallists so far are as follows: Adrian de Kleyn (1948), A.A.J. van Egmond (1953), C.S. Hallpike (1958), Alf Brodal (1963), Gosta Dohlman (1968), Otto Lowenstein (1973), Cesar Fernandez (1978), Ottavio Pompeiano (1983), G. Melvill Jones (1988) and Yasuo Harada (1994).

1994 AAO-HNS Research Grants

Dr. Jerome C. Goldstein, Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, has an-nounced the successful applicants for the Foundation's three biomedical research grants programs. The 1994 recipients are:

Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals

Resident Research Grant

Jill C. Beck, M.D., University of Michigan, for Human Papilloma Virus in Nasal Inverted Papilloma, $10,000

Academy Resident Research Grants

Gregory Hyde, M.D., University of Washington, for Mitochondrial Role in Auditory Neuron Survival Following Deafness, $10,000

Kathleen Billings, M.D., University of California at Los Angeles, for Apoptosis in Squamous Cell Carcinomas of the Head and Neck, $10,000

Academy Research Training Awards (ARTA)

Wendall Yarbrough, M.D., University of North Carolina, for EMS1 Amplification, Expression, and Phosphorylation in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas, $15,000

Markus Gapany, M.D., Minneapolis VAMC, for Role of Casein Kinase 2 (CK-2) in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck, $12,500

Moufid Abdo, M.D., Monefiore Medical Center, for Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions in Patients on Hemodialysis, $12,500

Percy Memorial Research Award

No award will be made in 1994.

American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy and

American Academy of Otolaryngology-HNS

No award will be made in 1994.

There were a total of 19 applications submitted in the 1994 competition. Funding for Foundation grants is provided by a gift from Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and proceeds from the Academy Foundation's Research and Percy Memorial Endowment Funds. Certificates of Award were presented to each of these talented research investigators during the 98th Annual Meeting of the Foundation in San Diego, CA, September 18-21, 1994. The deadline for receipt of applications for the Academy's 1995 competition will be February 15, 1995.

The Deafness Research Foundation Third-year Medical Student Awards

The Deafness Research Foundation recently announced four fellowship awards of $13,500 each to third-year medical students who are interested in careers in otologic research.

The DRF Otologic Fellowship Program began in 1985 and seeks to encourage young talented medical students to enter the specialty of otologic research. Each student takes one year out of his/her medical school curriculum to partake in a supervised research project. Fellows not only learn research skills, but they also gain valuable insight into the world of academic medicine. Such exposure at this point in a medical student's schooling can be helpful in making crucial career decisions. The program is partially supported by gifts from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the William Randolph Hearst Foundation.

The 1994/95 DRF Otologic Fellowship recipients are:

Steven S. Ball: For the study of serous otitis media, the most common cause of hearing loss among infants and young children. Mr. Ball is sponsored by Jiri Prazma, M.D., Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

C.G. Dean Dais: For the study of the effects of diabetes mellitus on hearing. Mr. Dais is sponsored by Jiri Prazma, M.D., Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Leslie Fan Hao: For the study of the effects on Ménière's disease on the inner ear structures. Ms. Hao is sponsored by Jack J. Wazen and Shyam M. Khanna, Ph.D. at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, New York.

Alexander Ramirez: For the study of a non-surgical, outpatient means to heal chronic eardrum perforation. Mr. Ramirez is sponsored by Dr. Robert K. Jackler, M.D. at the University of California, San Francisco.

Since 1958, the Deafness Research Foundation has been devoted to helping the 28 million hard of hearing individuals in this country by providing seed funding for research into the causes, treatment and prevention of deafness and other serious ear disorder. For more information about DRF call (800) 535-DEAF.

NIDCD Announces Anniversary Lecture

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders will present an Anniversary Lecture "How Hearing Happens: Mechanoelectrical Transduction, Frequency Tuning, and Synaptic Transmission," presented by A. J. Hudspeth, Ph.D., M.D. Dr. Hudspeth is the Director at the Center for Basic Neuroscience Research, Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. The lecture will be held Thursday, October 27, 1994, at 11:00 a.m. at the Lister Hill Auditorium, National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Sign language interpreting will be provided.

Brownell To Receive Kresge/Mirmelstein Award

The First Kresge/Mirmelstein Award for Hearing Science will be given this fall to Bill Brownell for his discovery of hair cell motility. The award is supported by the Mirmelstein bequest and by Etymotic Research and Singular Press. Brownell will then join other members of the committee to choose next year's winner and so on until the winners make up the entire committee. The award this year will be given as part of Kresge's 25th Anniversary celebration which will include a scientific meeting on hair cell motility and related issues in otoacoustic emissions and hearing aids. The award is on September 23 and the subsequent formal Gala on September 24th (Theme: Speakeasy in the Big Easy) will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in New Orleans, with a Patron and scientific visitor party on Friday Evening September 23rd in the neo-classical lobby of the First NBC building on St. Charles Avenue with local jazz and entertainment.

Second Annual Jerger Lecture in Audiology

The Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Communicative Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, is pleased to announce that the Second Annual Jerger Lecture in Audiology will be presented on October 20, 1994, by Dr. Ira Hirsh. Dr. Hirsh is Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Audiology at Washington University. He is also Senior Scientist at the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID), having served previously as the Director of CID.

Dr. Hirsh's first graduate studies were in audiology with Raymond Carhart at Northwestern University. He continued his graduate studies at Harvard University, completing his dissertation under S.S. Stevens in 1948. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American Psychological Association, of the American Speech and Hearing Association, and of the Acoustical Society of America. He has received numerous previous honors, such as the Whetnall Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Gold Medal of the Acoustical Society of America. Dr. Hirsh has also served as Chair of the National Research Council's Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and at the University of Paris, France.

Dr. Hirsh has published 130 articles in professional journals, in addition to his classic book, The Measurement of Hearing (1952). His research interests include binaural hearing, speech perception, the effects of noise, and more recently temporal aspects of auditory perception. The topic of Dr. Hirsh's presentation for the Second Annual Jerger Lecture in Audiology is "Audiologic Tests and Auditory Perception: Bottoms Up."

Results of the 1994 MidWinter Meeting Questionnaire

The ARO's Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) prepares a questionnaire each year that is included in the registration packet of each attendee at the ARO Midwinter Meeting (MWM). This survey is ARO's official mechanism for obtaining opinions from the membership on a variety of topics, only one of which is the MWM. The ARO Business Manager, Michele Johnson, compiles responses to the questionnaire into a detailed summary, including a verbatim list of all suggestions and comments. This summary is then distributed to ARO officers, Council members, and committee chairs. These individuals are asked to report to the LRPC any actions that have taken place as a result of members' comments. In addition, questionnaire results are discussed at the September Council meeting, which is held in conjunction with the ARO/AAO-HNS Research Forum.

ARO members can request a summary of the results of the 1994 MWM questionnaire from Michele Johnson, or from the LRPC chair, Judy Dubno.

At the 1994 MWM, there were 1112 attendees and we received 160 responses to the questionnaire (14%). The rate of return is very low and, as a result, we are sampling only a very small percentage of the membership. Because the MWM questionnaire is the only vehicle for polling the membership, it is important that the results reflect the opinions of as large a sample as possible. As an incentive, a $50 lottery prize has been offered for the last few years. To improve the rate of return, the Council voted this year to increase the prize drawing from $50 to a Tradewinds room upgrade to an oceanfront suite. This past year, the $50 prize was won by John Carey (University of Washington).

Here are some highlights of the results of the 1994 MWM questionnaire:

Who are MWM attendees:

81% of those responding to the questionnaire are ARO members.

Researchers accounted for the largest percentage of respondents (66%); 13% of respondents identified themselves as clinicians.

The largest percentage of respondents stated that their primary area of interest is the auditory system (64%). Of those members, 49% specified "cochlear/neural," 29% "central," 17% "psychophysical/behavioral," and 5% "outer/middle." Following the auditory area, the next largest area of interest was the vestibular system (14% of respondents).

What MWM attendees liked:

95% of respondents rated the overall meeting as good or excellent.

Contributed papers and symposia were rated as good or excellent by 93% and 75% of respondents, respectively.

The hotel and meeting place accommodations were rated as good or excellent by 82% and 90% of respondents, respectively. 79% of respondents supported the policy implemented in 1994 requiring that an ARO member or applicant sponsor each submitted abstract (with each member or applicant limited to sponsoring only one abstract).

Common complaints of MWM attendees:

The most common complaint about the meeting site was the overcrowded rooms for slide sessions.

Several attendees pointed out that ample time is not allotted for discussion during slide sessions.

Several attendees noted that it is difficult to arrange to meet with poster presenters for informal discussion.

Helpful suggestions from MWM attendees:

The Awards Committee received 53 suggestions for Award of Merit winners.

ARO News Editor (Gerald Popelka) received 17 suggestions for newsletter items.

In response to a question regarding members' interest in teaching a tutorial to enhance general understanding of a basic science topic, 14 individuals volunteered to organize or teach a tutorial.

When asked what program adjustments should be made to accommodate the increased numbers of papers submitted, the most popular solution was "larger poster sessions" (26% of respondents selected as first choice and 18% selected as second choice). The next two most popular selections were "limit the number of presentations from a given lab" (16% first choice and 16% third choice) and "more concurrent sessions" (15% first choice and 12% third choice). The two least popular choices were "longer slide sessions" and "fewer symposia."

The Chair of the MWM Slide Session Committee (Peter Santi) reports that the room overcrowding was partially a result of the need for three concurrent slide sessions during part of the meeting. As a result, the large ballroom that is used for slide sessions was divided into three rooms, rather than the usual two. This year's Program Organizing Committee will try to avoid arranging three concurrent slide sessions. Slide session chairs will be instructed to encourage attendees to use the seating space in rooms more efficiently. Beginning with the 1995 meeting, slide session chairs will report the attendance in their sessions, so that in the future, the Program Organizing Committee will be able to better anticipate room size needs for symposia and contributed slide sessions.

The instructions given to slide session chairs will include a reminder that it is important to keep sessions on time and to allow ample time for discussion. Letters sent to individuals giving slide presentations will emphasize the need to allow time during their presentations for discussion.

The Chair of the MWM Poster Session Committee (Doug Cotanche) reports that a small sign is provided at each poster for presenters to designate specific times that they will be at their posters. To increase the use of these signs, the letter that is sent to poster presenters will include instructions to designate an alternate time (in addition to 1:00 PM when the poster first goes up) that they will be at their posters for informal discussion.

The LRPC appreciates the MWM attendees telling us what they find satisfactory and unsatisfactory about the MWM and other ARO functions. We will continue to respond, whenever possible, to suggestions of the membership.

Judy Dubno

Animals in Research

Recently a number of ARO members have described and/or alluded to what appears to be a tightening of university regulations regarding animal use or increasingly exacting behavior by the institutional laboratory animal veterinarian. It is apparent from information gleaned from a number of sources that the USDA inspectors of animal facilities have become increasingly demanding. They routinely ask for information never before required, i.e. comparing numbers of animals requested in protocols with numbers used. Therefore, it is important to realize that laboratory animal veterinarians and your LACUC are not just arbitrarily trying to harass investigators, they are feeling the pressure.

Please send items related to the use of animals in research that you wish to appear in this column.

John Brugge
Don Caspary