INNER EAR ORGANOIDS FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN HEARING AND BALANCE
Dr Jackie Ogier
Passe & Williams Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Audiology and Speech Pathology
University of Melbourne
RESEARCHER PROFILE (Filmed in Melbourne | August 2024)
Dr Jackie Ogier is an auditory neuroscientist, with a research focus on the molecular biology of hair cells, the specialised sensory receptors in the ear that detect sound and balance. She is a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of A/Prof Bryony Nayagam, supported by a prestigious Passe and Williams foundation fellowship.
Dr Ogier completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Melbourne in 2020, where she investigated the pathogenic mechanisms underlying hearing loss and identified a novel molecular target for preventing aminoglycoside-induced hearing damage. She performed this research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute under the guidance of A/Prof Paul Lockhart, A/Prof Bryony Nayagam, and Dr Rachel Burt. During this time, she was President of the Research Students Association and a member of the MCRI Honours and Children’s Campus Graduate Research Training Committees. For her service to discipline, she was recognised with the MCRI Rising Star award in 2017.
Dr Ogier then undertook post-doctoral training at the Sunnybrook Research Institute (University of Toronto) with Prof Alain Dabdoub, where she optimised the collection, dissection, and culture of donated human cochleae for single cell sequencing. She also received The University of Toronto’s Dr Ian Witterick Research Prize in Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery for her continued ototoxicity research. Jackie subsequently established a collaboration between the Universities of Toronto and Melbourne to develop an “inner ear in a dish” that will accelerate hearing and balance discovery research.
Dr Ogier’s experience broadly spans the genetics of hearing loss, disease modelling, micro dissection, primary cell culture, stem cell culture, organoids, and proteomics. Overall, she aims to generate knowledge of hearing and vestibular sensory biology.
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CASE STUDY Next Generation Condom Contraception
Eudaemon Technologies, an early-stage medtech company with a focus on sexual reproductive health, is developing a hydrogel condom to address the need for a better feeling, next generation condom, with the potential to improve user experience and address issues with traditional latex condoms.
“Over 1 million STI’s being diagnosed every day and up to 120 million unplanned pregnancies every year result in a $60 billion health burden across the globe”, says Co-Founder and Executive Director of Operations, Dr Simon Cook.
Formed in 2018, the company focuses on developing tough hydrogels as an alternative to address issues with odour, colour, and taste commonly associated with latex condoms. This technology can be loaded with small molecule drugs for flavours or anti-STI compounds, and was developed in response to a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to address unplanned pregnancies and STIs.
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Mental wellbeing in rural and regional communities dealing with environmental challenges
Associate Professor Suzie Cosh is a psychologist and clinical researcher. Her work focuses on the intersection of climate change and mental health and she currently leads a body of work that focuses on supporting small rural communities to recover from and prepare for extreme weather events such as bushfires, floods and droughts.
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Ocular disease and early onset myopia
Dr Mountford has successfully established Western Australia’s first and only ocular genetic screening platform using zebrafish and utilises this model to help elucidate some of the complex gene-environment interactions responsible for the development of myopia.
