Karen P. Steel

Professor Karen Steel has pioneered the use of mouse mutants to identify deafness genes and to understanding the molecular and physiological basis for dysfunction. With Steve Brown, she identified the first gene involved in deafness, Myo7a, mutated in the shaker1 mouse and human Usher 1B. She coordinated high-throughput screens for deafness in two large European mouse mutagenesis programs. Altogether, she has published phenotypic descriptions of >100 mouse mutants representing 36 loci, and with collaborators has identified 37 mutations in 21 different genes by positional cloning. Through this work and generous collaborations, she has tremendously accelerated the molecular understanding of hearing.