The University of Sheffield
Department of Biomedical Science

Professor Walter Marcotti

Walter MarcottiProfessor of Sensory Neuroscience
Centre for Membrane Interactions and Dynamics
Department of Biomedical Science
The University of Sheffield
Western Bank
Sheffield S10 2TN. United Kingdom

Room: B1 221 Alfred Denny
Telephone: +44 (0) 114 222 1098
Email: w.marcotti@sheffield.ac.uk

Research Summary

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 normally develops and operates and how defects at molecular level lead to deafness. 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, calcium imaging and molecular biology techniques.

Read more on research in the Marcotti laboratory

Career history

Grants and funding

Recent publications

Johnson S, Kuhn S, Franz C, Ingham N, Furness DN, Knipper M, Steel KP, Adelman JP, Holley MC & Marcotti W
Presynaptic maturation in auditory hair cells requires a critical period of sensory-independent spiking activity.
PNAS. 2013. 110: 8720-25.

Zampini V, Franz C, Magistretti J, Johnson SL, Knipper M, Masetto S & Marcotti W
Burst activity and ultrafast activation kinetics of CaV1.3 Ca2+ channels support presynaptic activity in adult gerbil hair cell ribbon synapses.
J Physiol. 2013 (Rapid Report) in press.

Duncker S, et al. Marcotti W, Zimmermann U & Knipper M
Otoferlin couples to clathrin-mediated endocytosis in mature cochlear inner hair cells.
J Neurosci. 2013. 33: 9508-9519.

Eckrich T, Varakina K, Johnson SL, Franz C, Singer W, Kuhn S, Knipper M, Holley MC & W Marcotti
Development and function of the voltage-gated sodium current in immature mammalian cochlear inner hair cells.
PloS ONE 2012;7(9):e45732.

Chen W, Jongkamonwiwat N, Abbas L, Eshtan SJ, Johnson SL, Kuhn S, Milo M, Thurlow JK, Andrews PW, Marcotti W, Moore HD & Rivolta MN
Functional restoration of auditory evoked responses by human embryonic stem cells-derived cochlear progenitors.
Nature. 2012. 490: 278-82.

Johnson SL, Kennedy H, Holley MC, Fettiplace R & Marcotti W
The resting transducer current drives spontaneous activity in pre-hearing mammalian cochlear inner hair cell.
J Neurosci. 2012. 32: 10479-83.

Marcotti W.
Sharpey-Schafer Lecture: Functional assembly of mammalian cochlear hair cells.
Exp Physiol. 2011/2012. 97: 438-51. (Review)