Dr Walter Marcotti
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Royal Society University Research Fellow
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Research interests
- One of the challenges in modern medicine is to develop gene and stem cell therapeutic strategies to treat deafness by targeting specific genes that play a crucial role in the generation of the disease. In all cases, it is important to understand how the auditory system develop and function in normal and under deafness conditions. Moreover, understanding how the ear processes sound is essential to further technical and software development of hearing aids, including cochlear implants.
- In my laboratory, we aim to identify the normal development of the mammalian auditory system and, most importantly, to determine the functional/physiological consequences of genes that when mutated cause deafness in humans.
- This is achieved by studying the physiological properties of the individual sensory hair cells of the mammalian cochlea using electrophysiological techniques and molecular biology.
Read more on research in the Marcotti laboratory
Career history
- 2006 - present: Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Sheffield, UK.
- 2004 - 2005: Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Sussex, UK.
- 2001 - 2004: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Sussex, UK.
- 1997 - 2000: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Bristol, UK.
- 1994 - 1997: PhD, University of Pavia, Italy.
- 1989 - 1992: University Degree in Biological Science, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Grants and funding
- The Wellcome Trust (2011-2013)
Functional role of synaptotagmins at ribbon synapses of mammalian cochlear hair cells. - Westfield Health (2010-2012)
Physiological basis of hearing loss in Eps8 knockout mice. - Royal Society: Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2009-2012)
Calcium regulation and frequency selectivity in mammalian cochlear hair cells. - The Wellcome Trust (2009-2012)
Functional maturation of ribbon synapses in mammalian cochlear inner hair cells. - RNID - Project Grant (2009-2012)
Physiological basis of progressive hearing loss in diminuendo mutant mice.
Recent publications
Marcotti W.
Sharpey-Schafer Lecture: Functional assembly of mammalian cochlear hair cells.
Exp Physiol. 2011 Dec 16. [Epub ahead of print]
Johnson SL, Beurg M, Marcotti W & Fettipplace R
Prestin-driven cochlear amplification is not limited by the outer hair cell membrane time constant.
Neuron. 2011 70:1143-54
Alagramam KN, Goodyear RJ, Geng R, Furness DN, van Aken A, Marcotti W, Kros CJ & Richardson GP
Mice with mutations in protocadherin 15 and cadherin 23 lack tip links and have defects in mechanotransduction.
PloS One 6: 2011. e19183.
Johnson SL, Eckrich T, Kuhn S, Zampini V, Franz C, Ranatunga KM, Roberts TP, Masetto S, Knipper M, Kros CJ Marcotti W
Position-dependent patterning of spontaneous action potentials in immature cochlear inner hair cells.
Nature Neurosci Published online: 15 May 2011 | doi:10.1038/nn.2803.
Zampini V, Rüttiger L, Johnson S, Franz C, Furness DN, Waldhaus J, Xiong H, Hackney CM, Holley MC, Offenhauser N, Di Fiore PP, Knipper M, Masetto S & Marcotti W
Eps8 Regulates Hair Bundle Length and Functional Maturation of Mammalian Auditory Hair Cells.
PloS Biology 9: e1001048.
Kuhn S, Johnson SL, Furness DN, Chen J, Ingham N, Hilton JM, Steffes G, Lewis MA, Zampini V, Hackney CM, Masetto S, Holley MC, Steel KP & Marcotti W
miR-96 regulates the progression of differentiation in mammalian cochlear inner and outer hair cells.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011. 108:2355-60.
Johnson SL, Franz C, Kuhn S, Furness DN, Rüttiger L, Münkner S, Rivolta MN, Seward EP, Herschman HR, Engel J, Knipper M & Marcotti W
Synaptotagmin IV determines the linear calcium dependence of vesicle fusion at auditory ribbon synapses.
Nature Neurosci. 2010. 13:45-52.
Zampini V, Johnson SL, Lawrence N, Franz C, Münkner S, Engel J, Knipper M, Magistretti
Elementary properties of CaV1.3 Ca2+ channels expressed in mouse inner hair cells.
J Physiol. 20009. 588:187-199.
Johnson SL, Franz C, Knipper M and Marcotti W
Functional maturation of the exocytotic machinery at gerbil hair cell ribbon synapses.
J Physiol. 2009. 587:1715-26.
Heidrych P, Zimmermann U, Kuhn S, Franz C, Engel J, Duncker SV, Hirt B, Pusch CM, &Knipper M
Otoferlin interacts with myosin VI: implications for maintenance of the basolateral synaptic structure of the inner hair cell.
Hum Mol Genet. 2009 Aug 1;18(15):2779-90. Epub 2009 May 5.
Chen W, Johnson SL, Marcotti W, Andrews PW, Moore HD and Rivolta MN
Human Fetal Auditory Stem Cells (hFASCs) can be expanded in vitro and differentiate into functional auditory neurons and hair cell-like cells.
Stem Cells. 2009. 27:1196-1204.