Dr. Sotomayor received his first NIH R01 grant this month. The proposed work, now funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIH NIDCD) for five years, focusses on the nanomechanics of inner-ear tip link proteins essential for hearing and balance. The overall goal of this project is to determine the biophysical and biochemical behavior of tip links when exposed to different calcium concentrations, when made by different protein variants, and when they carry deafness-related mutations. More information is available here.