Sheffield Hearing Group
@hearingshef.bsky.social
World-leading research group at The University of Sheffield. We specialise in research on the development, function and ageing of the auditory systems.
sheffield.ac.uk/hearing
sheffield.ac.uk/hearing
💚 🏆 We’re very happy to have received the Sustainability Lab Leaf Silver Award for creating an even greener, more sustainable research environment! 🧪 🥬 Many many thanks to everyone in the lab for their efforts #Sustainability #GreenLabs #SheffieldHearingGroup
November 19, 2025 at 8:01 AM
💚 🏆 We’re very happy to have received the Sustainability Lab Leaf Silver Award for creating an even greener, more sustainable research environment! 🧪 🥬 Many many thanks to everyone in the lab for their efforts #Sustainability #GreenLabs #SheffieldHearingGroup
Rinta Mathew: Postdoc
Research: Investigating regulation of signal processing in developing and ageing mouse cochlea in vivo and how these influence central auditory neuronal pathways.
Method: 2-photon imaging & AAV-gene delivery
Twitter: x.com/MathewRinta
Lab snack: Nature Valley Peanut & Chocolate
Research: Investigating regulation of signal processing in developing and ageing mouse cochlea in vivo and how these influence central auditory neuronal pathways.
Method: 2-photon imaging & AAV-gene delivery
Twitter: x.com/MathewRinta
Lab snack: Nature Valley Peanut & Chocolate
November 12, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Rinta Mathew: Postdoc
Research: Investigating regulation of signal processing in developing and ageing mouse cochlea in vivo and how these influence central auditory neuronal pathways.
Method: 2-photon imaging & AAV-gene delivery
Twitter: x.com/MathewRinta
Lab snack: Nature Valley Peanut & Chocolate
Research: Investigating regulation of signal processing in developing and ageing mouse cochlea in vivo and how these influence central auditory neuronal pathways.
Method: 2-photon imaging & AAV-gene delivery
Twitter: x.com/MathewRinta
Lab snack: Nature Valley Peanut & Chocolate
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🌟🔬 Here’s an image from Ivy of outer hair cells (OHCs) and inner hair cells (IHCs) from a P20 mouse.. 🐁✨#Microscopy #HearingResearch #Cochlea #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
November 10, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🌟🔬 Here’s an image from Ivy of outer hair cells (OHCs) and inner hair cells (IHCs) from a P20 mouse.. 🐁✨#Microscopy #HearingResearch #Cochlea #Neuroscience #Neuroskyence
🌿🏅 We’re proud to announce the Sheffield Hearing Group has been awarded the Sustainability Lab Leaf Bronze Award for creating a greener, more sustainable research environment! 🌎🔬Huge thanks to everyone in the lab for their efforts🌱👏 #Sustainability #GreenLabs #SheffieldHearingGroup
November 8, 2025 at 8:00 AM
🌿🏅 We’re proud to announce the Sheffield Hearing Group has been awarded the Sustainability Lab Leaf Bronze Award for creating a greener, more sustainable research environment! 🌎🔬Huge thanks to everyone in the lab for their efforts🌱👏 #Sustainability #GreenLabs #SheffieldHearingGroup
Howdy all, today's spotlight comes from Saman Hussain and was published in September. This (very pretty) paper identifies spontaneous calcium activity within the sound-detecting stereocilia driven by the MET channel, and independent from the usual calcium waves!
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
November 7, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Howdy all, today's spotlight comes from Saman Hussain and was published in September. This (very pretty) paper identifies spontaneous calcium activity within the sound-detecting stereocilia driven by the MET channel, and independent from the usual calcium waves!
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬🌟Nic has taken a cross-section image of the retina under the microscope: red shows the Retinal Pigment Epithelial cells, orange shows photoreceptor cell bodies with cilia & green shows the outer nuclear layer with just photoreceptor cell bodies 👁️✨
#neuroskyence
#neuroskyence
November 3, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬🌟Nic has taken a cross-section image of the retina under the microscope: red shows the Retinal Pigment Epithelial cells, orange shows photoreceptor cell bodies with cilia & green shows the outer nuclear layer with just photoreceptor cell bodies 👁️✨
#neuroskyence
#neuroskyence
Lillian Smith | PhD student
Research focus: Understanding the mechanisms associated with mitochondria dysfunction underpinning ARHL and neurodegenerative diseases using in vivo physiology, 2-photon functional imaging, RNA sequencing, and immunolabeling
Fun fact: My go-to lab snack is mini cheddars
Research focus: Understanding the mechanisms associated with mitochondria dysfunction underpinning ARHL and neurodegenerative diseases using in vivo physiology, 2-photon functional imaging, RNA sequencing, and immunolabeling
Fun fact: My go-to lab snack is mini cheddars
October 29, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Lillian Smith | PhD student
Research focus: Understanding the mechanisms associated with mitochondria dysfunction underpinning ARHL and neurodegenerative diseases using in vivo physiology, 2-photon functional imaging, RNA sequencing, and immunolabeling
Fun fact: My go-to lab snack is mini cheddars
Research focus: Understanding the mechanisms associated with mitochondria dysfunction underpinning ARHL and neurodegenerative diseases using in vivo physiology, 2-photon functional imaging, RNA sequencing, and immunolabeling
Fun fact: My go-to lab snack is mini cheddars
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photo comes from Alice showing an scanning electron microscopy image of outer hair cells lacking many stereocilia due to abnormal expression of a protein important for hair bundle maintenance! 🧪🐁
October 27, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photo comes from Alice showing an scanning electron microscopy image of outer hair cells lacking many stereocilia due to abnormal expression of a protein important for hair bundle maintenance! 🧪🐁
Last week we said goodbye and good luck to Francesca, who’s been an amazing part of the Sheffield Hearing Group! Thank you, Fran, for everything — the lab won’t be the same without you! 🧪🌟
October 22, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Last week we said goodbye and good luck to Francesca, who’s been an amazing part of the Sheffield Hearing Group! Thank you, Fran, for everything — the lab won’t be the same without you! 🧪🌟
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photo comes from Zoë and shows the inner and outer hair cells in the organ of Corti of a mouse stained with Phalloidin (in red), the supporting cells outlined with connexin 30 (in green), and the cell nuclei stained with DAPI (in blue).🧪🐁
October 13, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photo comes from Zoë and shows the inner and outer hair cells in the organ of Corti of a mouse stained with Phalloidin (in red), the supporting cells outlined with connexin 30 (in green), and the cell nuclei stained with DAPI (in blue).🧪🐁
A quick video on how we Immunolabel proteins in the organ of corti 😊🧪
October 8, 2025 at 7:02 AM
A quick video on how we Immunolabel proteins in the organ of corti 😊🧪
Happy #MicroscopyMonday 🌟🔬 Todays photo comes from Ginny and shows pre and post synapses from inner hair cells. White stains the nucleus, red stains CtBP2, green stains Shank1 and blue stains GluR2🧪🐁
October 6, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday 🌟🔬 Todays photo comes from Ginny and shows pre and post synapses from inner hair cells. White stains the nucleus, red stains CtBP2, green stains Shank1 and blue stains GluR2🧪🐁
We've had a busy few weeks as we have returned from an amazing Inner Ear Biology conference in Tübingen!👂 It was inspiring to hear cutting-edge research and disseminate our own—Adam, Alice, and Char gave talks, while Ginny, Federico, Yan, and Andrea presented their latest work in poster sessions!🧑🔬🧪
October 2, 2025 at 1:09 PM
We've had a busy few weeks as we have returned from an amazing Inner Ear Biology conference in Tübingen!👂 It was inspiring to hear cutting-edge research and disseminate our own—Adam, Alice, and Char gave talks, while Ginny, Federico, Yan, and Andrea presented their latest work in poster sessions!🧑🔬🧪
Today's spotlight comes from Hubert Lee and was published just last month. This clever paper shows that TMC1/2, the channels responsible for all hearing in mammals, can flip lipids between the membrane leaflets! The function is unknown, but it sure is interesting! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 3, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Today's spotlight comes from Hubert Lee and was published just last month. This clever paper shows that TMC1/2, the channels responsible for all hearing in mammals, can flip lipids between the membrane leaflets! The function is unknown, but it sure is interesting! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬🌟 Today's image comes from Alice and it is a beautiful SEM (Scanning electron microscope) picture showing both the inner hair cells (at the bottom) and the three rows of outer hair cells (at the top)!🐀🧪
September 1, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬🌟 Today's image comes from Alice and it is a beautiful SEM (Scanning electron microscope) picture showing both the inner hair cells (at the bottom) and the three rows of outer hair cells (at the top)!🐀🧪
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🔬🌟Today's image is from Andrea, showing his first attempt at phalloidin staining of a 4 day-old zebrafish saccular macula - the main hearing organ of the fish.🐟 In the centre of the photo you can see the hair cells, with a few examples highlighted by white arrows!🧪
August 18, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🔬🌟Today's image is from Andrea, showing his first attempt at phalloidin staining of a 4 day-old zebrafish saccular macula - the main hearing organ of the fish.🐟 In the centre of the photo you can see the hair cells, with a few examples highlighted by white arrows!🧪
Today's #TraceTuesday comes from Charlie! This trace was recorded towards the start of his PhD, showing spontaneous activity in neurons of the zebrafish lateral line. This spontaneous activity is a key feature during normal development of the zebrafish lateral line and the mammalian cochlea! 🐟🧪📈
August 12, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Today's #TraceTuesday comes from Charlie! This trace was recorded towards the start of his PhD, showing spontaneous activity in neurons of the zebrafish lateral line. This spontaneous activity is a key feature during normal development of the zebrafish lateral line and the mammalian cochlea! 🐟🧪📈
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🔬Today’s image is from Alice. She injected this adult cochlea in vivo with an adeno-associated virus (AAV).🧬 We can see the AAV was able to transduce green fluorescent protein (GFP) into inner hair cells (brightly-labelled) and outer hair cells (dimly-labelled)🐀🧪
August 11, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone! 🔬Today’s image is from Alice. She injected this adult cochlea in vivo with an adeno-associated virus (AAV).🧬 We can see the AAV was able to transduce green fluorescent protein (GFP) into inner hair cells (brightly-labelled) and outer hair cells (dimly-labelled)🐀🧪
JWST just released a new image of the red planet!
Just kidding, this is an image of the organ of Corti stained red that I've badly photoshopped 👩🚀 Have a great weekend all!
Just kidding, this is an image of the organ of Corti stained red that I've badly photoshopped 👩🚀 Have a great weekend all!
August 1, 2025 at 2:45 PM
JWST just released a new image of the red planet!
Just kidding, this is an image of the organ of Corti stained red that I've badly photoshopped 👩🚀 Have a great weekend all!
Just kidding, this is an image of the organ of Corti stained red that I've badly photoshopped 👩🚀 Have a great weekend all!
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photos from Nic show a cross section of the retinal layers in mice eyes.🐀👀 Here we can see (from the bottom), the photoreceptor layer, the middle layer (containing bipolar, horizontal, and amacrine cells), and the ganglion cell layer!🧪
July 28, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today's photos from Nic show a cross section of the retinal layers in mice eyes.🐀👀 Here we can see (from the bottom), the photoreceptor layer, the middle layer (containing bipolar, horizontal, and amacrine cells), and the ganglion cell layer!🧪
Howdy, one of our PIs (Adam - me) was down in London earlier this week attending the @wellcometrust.bsky.social investigator meeting. It was great to see the breadth of what Wellcome fund and chat with other investigators (Primarily more senior). These are the only pics I got though as I was solo!
July 25, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Howdy, one of our PIs (Adam - me) was down in London earlier this week attending the @wellcometrust.bsky.social investigator meeting. It was great to see the breadth of what Wellcome fund and chat with other investigators (Primarily more senior). These are the only pics I got though as I was solo!
Today's #TraceTuesday comes from Nic, again! We have another trace from a retinal ganglion cell. 🦠 The small peak at the start is an artifact (Nic is still learning), but importantly, the big dip in the trace shows a large inward sodium current which is crucial for generating action potentials! 🧪📈
July 22, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Today's #TraceTuesday comes from Nic, again! We have another trace from a retinal ganglion cell. 🦠 The small peak at the start is an artifact (Nic is still learning), but importantly, the big dip in the trace shows a large inward sodium current which is crucial for generating action potentials! 🧪📈
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today we have a video from Ginny showing the electromotility in an outer hair cell of a 19 day old mouse.🐀 This process is the primary function of outer hair cells and it is key for hearing quiet sounds!🧪👂
July 21, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🌟🔬 Today we have a video from Ginny showing the electromotility in an outer hair cell of a 19 day old mouse.🐀 This process is the primary function of outer hair cells and it is key for hearing quiet sounds!🧪👂
📖Howdy, today's paper spotlight comes from Xiayi Liao and was published this month. This (Exceptionally pretty) manuscript takes a detailed look at the addition of actin filaments to hair cell stereocilia; the tiny hairs that detect sounds within the inner ear!
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
July 16, 2025 at 3:20 PM
📖Howdy, today's paper spotlight comes from Xiayi Liao and was published this month. This (Exceptionally pretty) manuscript takes a detailed look at the addition of actin filaments to hair cell stereocilia; the tiny hairs that detect sounds within the inner ear!
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬 Today's image comes from Char!🌟 Here we can see a beautiful immunostaining of the mature spinal ganglion neurons from the apical region of the cochlea, where lower frequencies are detected, of a P25 mouse cochlea!🐀🧪
July 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Happy #MicroscopyMonday everyone!🔬 Today's image comes from Char!🌟 Here we can see a beautiful immunostaining of the mature spinal ganglion neurons from the apical region of the cochlea, where lower frequencies are detected, of a P25 mouse cochlea!🐀🧪