NIH renews largest grant in Creighton history for hearing research
The National Institutes of Health has renewed funding for the Dr. Richard J. Bellucci Translational Hearing Center, awarding nearly $10.9 million to continue building Creighton University’s nationally recognized hearing research program.
The renewal extends the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant for another five years, continuing the largest NIH grant in Creighton history. Since receiving its initial award in 2021, the Bellucci Hearing Center has expanded its research capabilities, recruited and mentored early-career faculty researchers and strengthened Creighton’s role as a national leader in hearing research.
Building the next generation of hearing researchers
The COBRE program provides early-stage investigators with mentorship and access to shared research resources as they work toward securing major independent funding and establishing their own laboratories.
“The goal of the center is to develop research cores for researchers to use equipment that’s beyond the budget of a typical lab, recruit early-stage investigators and mentor them to become independent research scientists,” said Peter Steyger, PhD, director of the Bellucci Translational Hearing Center.
The researchers supported through the COBRE program contribute to the Center’s broader mission of understanding why hearing and vestibular disorders occur. By identifying new genetic factors and studying the underlying causes of different hearing disorders, they are helping lay the foundation for more effective interventions.
Since the center received its initial COBRE award in 2021, five early-stage investigators have completed the program and secured NIH R01 research awards, which Steyger described as the "staple of research in biomedical sciences" in the United States. The center currently supports three additional early-stage investigators who have submitted R01 or equivalent research proposals and has helped other researchers prepare proposals that have also received funding. According to Steyger, those efforts have contributed approximately $8.5 million to research growth within the Creighton’s School of Medicine.
Expanding research at Creighton and beyond
The Bellucci Center’s impact extends beyond individual research projects. Over the past five years, the center has expanded Creighton’s research capabilities through faculty recruitment, shared infrastructure and collaboration.
Faculty recruitment has been another key part of the center's growth. During the first phase of the COBRE award, the Bellucci Center recruited five new early-stage investigator faculty members and one mid-level faculty researcher. It is currently recruiting an additional early-stage investigator and anticipates adding two to three more faculty members over the next five years. Steyger said those researchers will form a critical mass of funded scientists that will continue advancing hearing research at Creighton for years to come.
Over the past year, Bellucci Center faculty including Kelsey Anbuhl, PhD, Hui Hong, PhD, and Litao Tao, PhD have secured additional NIH funding to advance research across a range of hearing disorders, further strengthening the center's national reputation in hearing research.
The center has also established and expanded shared research core services, including mass spectrometry, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy. Available to researchers across Creighton and the surrounding region, these resources provide access to specialized equipment while encouraging collaboration with nearby institutions.
Steyger said the center's growth extends beyond hearing research.
"The COBRE award has been the flagship for expanding the research enterprise at Creighton," he said. "We're trying to improve quality of life by understanding how disease and disorders happen, then identify useful interventions that can prevent those disorders or rehabilitate people afflicted with them."
The next phase of discovery
With nearly $10.9 million in renewed NIH funding, the Bellucci Center will continue supporting early-stage investigators while expanding research on hearing and vestibular disorders.
Over the next five years, researchers will investigate hereditary hearing disorders, medication-induced hearing loss and new approaches to protecting or restoring hearing and vestibular function. The renewed funding will also support studies exploring gene regulation, drug repurposing and machine learning tools designed to accelerate scientific discovery and improve the analysis of research data.
As new investigators join the Bellucci Center and ongoing research continues to advance, the renewed COBRE award positions the Bellucci Center to build on the momentum of the past five years while bringing researchers closer to new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating hearing and vestibular disorders.
