Advancing hearing research at Creighton
At Creighton’s Dr. Richard J. Bellucci Translational Hearing Center, three biomedical science faculty members in the School of Medicine have secured funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), totaling nearly $5 million. Together, their work underscores Creighton’s growing role as a national leader in hearing loss research.
Marisa Zallocchi, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, was awarded a $2.9 million NIH grant to develop treatments that could prevent hearing loss caused by commonly used antibiotics. Read more about Zallochi’s grant. Zallocchi and her team are pursuing research to minimize hearing loss associated with aminoglycosides, a widely used and effective class of antibiotics.
While these drugs are essential — particularly for treating infections such as sepsis, tuberculosis and E. coli, or when used as prophylactic therapy in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit — they can cause permanent hearing loss in 40% to 60% of patients. Currently, no treatment exists to prevent this side effect.
Her research explores piperlongumine, a natural compound from the long pepper plant with anti-inflammatory properties. By modifying its chemical structure, Zallocchi’s team aims to block pathways that allow aminoglycosides to damage hearing cells.
Early tests in zebrafish and later in mice will identify safe, effective compounds for potential clinical trials — advancing treatment and quality of life.
When Allison Coffin, PhD, joined the Creighton faculty in 2025, a $1.3 million NIH grant followed her to the Bellucci Center, where she now leads a lab examining the effects of medications on hearing loss.
Each year, dozens of new medications enter clinical trials to treat infectious diseases such as influenza and the inflammatory conditions that often accompany these infections. However, new drugs aren’t routinely tested for their potential to cause hearing loss as an unwanted side effect. Coffin, associate professor of biomedical sciences, and her team are leveraging this large preclinical data set to study possible links between certain treatment plans and mild hearing loss.
In her lab, zebrafish in their larval stage are used to test drugs. The fish have external hearing cells that glow under a microscope, allowing Coffin’s team to see when medications cause cell damage. If a drug kills 20% of cells, it advances to testing in mammals and, eventually, clinical review.
Coffin’s growing team can test about 20 drugs a week. They have screened 300 and are now validating their results. Coffin says the work not only advances science but also ensures safer medications and greater patient confidence in treatment plans.
Kelsey Anbuhl, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical sciences, received a $726,177 NIH grant to advance her preclinical research into hearing loss among adolescents, a population often overlooked in auditory studies.
The funding will support the next phase of her research into the brain mechanisms that underlie “listening effort” — the cognitive and neural exertion required to understand speech and sound, particularly in individuals with hearing loss.
In the first phase, she identified a previously unknown neural pathway linked to listening effort using Mongolian gerbils, whose hearing range closely mirrors humans. This pathway may help explain how the brain allocates resources to process sound when hearing is impaired, providing a biological framework for the everyday challenges people with hearing loss face.
Adolescents are at a key stage of development where cognitive fatigue from hearing loss can affect social relationships, academics and later success. The new phase of Anbuhl’s work aims to connect these biological mechanisms with lived experiences, guiding improved interventions, technologies and support for young people with hearing deficits.
