Bionic ear founder joins La Trobe
Professor Clark with images of early and more modern electrodes used in bionic ear implants.
Dr Paolini speaks at the media conference for the announcement of Professor Clark's appointment.
Pioneer of cochlear implants, Graeme Clark, has taken up the first post of Distinguished Professor at La Trobe University in the quest for the next-generation hi-fi bionic ear.
Professor Clark joined La Trobe late last year to establish the Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit in the School of Psychological Science where he will conduct research with Associate Professor Tony Paolini and other specialist groups at the University dealing with hearing, speech and language.
Professor Clark says he will be returning to his first love, auditory neurophysiology, that has been crucial in guiding him in developing the bionic ear, as well as continuing his strong commitment to speech science.
The La Trobe appointment coincided with the 30th anniversary of a world first in cochlear implant technology – the moment of conclusive proof, defying all scientifi c prediction, that a deaf person could be helped to understand speech.
Announcing the appointment, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Tim Brown said the new unit has grown out of Dr Paolini’s advanced auditory neuroscience laboratory and will conduct world-leading research to develop a new generation of high-fi delity cochlear implants.
‘The Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit forms part of the University’s focus on socially relevant research for the 21st century being carried out under the umbrella of our Institute for Social Participation,’ Professor Brown said.
Costs of hearing loss
Hearing loss represents a financial cost to Australia of $11.75 billion per annum, according to research by Access Economics. The number of people aff ected by hearing loss is projected to increase to one in every four Australians by 2050.
Dr Paolini said Professor Clark’s appointment continues their 14-year collaboration to improve cochlear implants. As a team, they employ sophisticated techniques to record from inside auditory brain cells to understand how the cells talked to each other in response to sound.
One of Australia’s leading auditory neuroscientists, Dr Paolini said La Trobe’s advanced hearing and auditory neuroscience laboratory – with its state-of-the-art stimulus recording equipment – has been used for a range of major National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council funded research projects. Information from these is helping develop new ways to improve hearing for cochlear implant users.
The new Graeme Clark Hearing and Neuroscience Unit will expand these techniques to include recordings from hundreds of brain cells simultaneously, and incorporate these advances in new biomaterials.
This next generation of implants will deliver a richer texture and more dynamic hearing experience, improving speech and music processing and providing a better awareness of the nuances of sound.
A Companion of the Order of Australia and Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Professor Clark has been honoured worldwide for his work on the multiple-channel cochlear implant or bionic ear.
His was the first cochlear implant to reliably give speech understanding to severely-toprofoundly deaf people, leading to spoken language for children born deaf.
Over the past twenty years more than 120,000 cochlear implants have been performed in 100 countries world-wide, some 70 per cent with the Australiandeveloped bionic ear manufactured by Cochlear Limited. Patients who have benefited from the procedure are aged between nine months and 90 years of age.