Dr. Allison Coffin
Courses
| Course ID | Title | Meeting Time | Location | Semester | Syllabus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MBioS 401 | Cell Biology | Spring 2012 |
Research
Hearing is one of our basic senses – it allows us to communicate and to perceive the world around us. At the heart of hearing is the sensory hair cell: a polarized epithelial-type cell that converts acoustic signals in the environment to electrochemical signals in the nervous system. These cells are exquisitely sensitive to sound and unfortunately to damage from a variety of sources including noise and some classes of medications. This damage causes hearing loss, cutting us off from the outside world. Research in my lab seeks to understand the cellular events underlying hearing loss so that we may prevent these events and preserve hearing. My research is currently funded by NIH.
My research examines two major questions:
1) What cellular and molecular events trigger hair cell death following a toxic insult?
2) How do endogenous hormones influence hair cell death and proliferation?
My lab uses a variety of fishes as model systems for this research. We study cell signaling in damaged hair cells of the lateral line in larval zebrafish (Danio rerio). Due to their small size, the wealth of genetic tools available, and the external location of the lateral line, these tiny fish are an ideal model for hair cell death and protection studies.
We use the plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus) to study the influence of hormones on hair cell survival and function. Midshipman are notoriously noisy fish – during the reproductive season, males “sing” to attract females for breeding. Remarkably, the female’s auditory system changes so that during the breeding season she is actually better able to hear certain components of the male’s call. This discovery of auditory plasticity was made by my long-term collaborator, Dr. Joseph Sisneros, at the University of Washington. Our labs study how seasonal hormones modulate both physiological and morphological plasticity in the female’s auditory system.
If you are interested in working in the lab as an undergraduate student, graduate student or postdoctoral fellow, please contact me at allison.coffin@wsu.edu.
Education
- PhD, Biology, University of Maryland
- MS, Fisheries, University of Minnesota
- BS, Marine Biology, Florida Institute of Technology