Jianxin Bao, Ph.D. joined Central Institute for the Deaf as an assistant research scientist in June of 2002. As head of CID’s Presbycusis and Aging Laboratory, he is working under a five-year career National Institute of Aging grant to study the role of neuregulin-1, a protein that may help maintain synaptic connections between hair cells and auditory neurons, in age-related hearing loss. In addition, he has a three-year grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to study the molecular mechanisms underlying age-related hearing loss, focusing on the age-related loss of auditory neurons.
       Dr. Bao is a research assistant professor at CID at Washington University School of Medicine, department of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. Prior to joining CID and Washington University, Dr. Bao was an associate research scientist in the laboratory of Lorna Role, Ph.D., in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University in New York. He also has conducted research at Harvard University and Stanford University. His honors include the Tonnessen Fellowship in Genetics and Development, the Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Diamond Postdoctoral Fellowship and the 1992 Michael Goldberger Award. In addition, Dr. Bao has co-authored a number of scholarly articles and been a guest speaker at several universities.
       Dr. Bao holds a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Florida and a master’s degree in physiology and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Nanjing University. He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience.