Professor Karen Steel FRS FMedSci

Karen Steel is a Principal Investigator at the Sanger Institute. She is internationally at the forefront of research into deafness and ear development using predominantly the mouse as a model but with a strong interest in and influence on the field of human hearing research. Karen has studied both the molecular genetics and the biology and physiology of the ear during development and in maturity in mice. Her group has developed novel technology for the identification and study of these mouse models and the mutations in the genes causing the observed phenotypes. In many instances the homologous human gene is implicated in human disease. An important aim of her work is to improve the criteria for differential diagnosis of different types of hereditary human deafness, through developing methods for distinguishing similar phenotypes, using the mouse model system, including electrophysiological approaches. In collaboration with Harwell her group was one of the major early developers of the successful phenotyping protocols used for the ENU mutagenesis screening.