Bionics Institute Australia
Rachael Richardson is a Professor in Optogenetics and Senior Principal Research Fellow at the Bionics Institute. She is also Deputy Head of Department of the Medical Bionics Department at the University of Melbourne.
Alongside these roles, Rachael is passionate about addressing the challenges faced by early career researchers and women in STEM by providing experience and opportunities through mentorship and workshops.
More about Rachael’s work
Professor Richardson leads a multi-disciplinary team researching technology for precise nerve stimulation for restoration of hearing and vision, and for other conditions like chronic pain and Parkinson’s disease.
Her work focuses on using optogenetics (a biological technique to control the activity of nerve cells or other cell types with light for precise and selective nerve stimulation).
Improving listening through cochlear implants using light to stimulate the hearing nerve
Read about Rachael’s research projectRachael’s hopes for hearing research
Hearing, music and communication are such essential and enriching components of everyday life, and compromised hearing leads to anxiety and missed opportunities.
I am committed to doing research that improves outcomes with cochlear implants by using technologies to control nerve activity with high precision.
Since gene therapies for hearing restoration are not suitable for everyone with hearing loss, it is still important to improve existing therapies, like the cochlear implant. The cochlear implant allows people to understand speech but has many shortcomings for conveying music and when used in noisy environments.
Improving the way sound is encoded and overcoming limitations of electrical stimulation will be necessary to make big improvements for cochlear implant users.
I hope that this study will give important insight into how using a more precise stimulus, such as light, can improve encoding of the stimulus and the discrimination of speech in background noise.
I am incredibly grateful for the support of the RNID. This funding supports a team of talented and dedicated researchers to pursue their goals of advancing precise neuromodulation therapies.