Resource Center for Human Temporal Bone Research, Innovation, and Education

ABSTRACT The study of the human temporal bone has proven to be incredibly powerful and is responsible for much of what we know about the anatomy and pathology of the ear. However, propagation of otopathology research has been hampered by barriers that affect every step of the research chain (procurement, processing, distribution, and dissemination). The major goals of this project are to propagate the use of human temporal bones for research and training through the establishment of our lab as national resource for temporal bone expertise and to become part of the collaborative network to be established by the NIDCD to serve the auditory and vestibular research communities. These goals will be achieved through 4 specific aims. In Specific Aim 1, we will establish a core service for processing and distribution of high-quality temporal bone tissue. We will leverage our high procurement capacity, digitization of our collection, and technical experience to implement a structured approach for prioritizing and processing human temporal bones that are of special scientific interest to meet research needs of the scientific community. In Specific Aim 2, we will optimize human temporal bone preparation techniques to reduce processing costs and time and improve the capacity to retain, preserve, and extract proteins and DNA/RNA. We will investigate technologies for improving the speed and quality achieved during fixation, embedding, decalcification, sectioning, and visualization. In Specific Aim 3, we will provide technical instruction on the processing and use of human temporal bones for the scientific and clinical communities. Innovative hybrid educational modules will be employed, and all materials, training, and protocols will be freely disseminated to increase the number of well-trained technicians and researchers. In Specific Aim 4, we will provide outreach to the scientific and clinical communities to disseminate and promote the use of human temporal bones in research. This will be achieved in-person at major scientific meetings and virtually using multiple multimedia resources. Our multidisciplinary team of experienced investigators has the necessary knowledge and skills aligned with ample resources (large archival collection, high procurement capacity of high-quality temporal bones, highly skilled team of technicians, internal distribution services to send biological specimens), collaborations with centers of excellence for imaging and tissue processing, and innovative educational and audiovisual services to provide the necessary means to propagate and take temporal bone research to the next level.