Otolaryngologist Leonard Rybak, a surgeon who has spent much of his career studying inner ear injuries and hearing loss, was named SIUC's Outstanding Scholar for 2005.

A faculty member with the SIU School of Medicine's Departments of Surgery and Pharmacology, Rybak is known worldwide for his work on ototoxicity (harm done to organs or nerves related to hearing and balance).

Much of his work has focused on understanding why many drugs commonly used to treat other ailments can wind up damaging the inner ear and causing hearing loss. He was the first to find that cisplatin, a common anti-cancer drug, causes the production of free radicals--atoms or groups of atoms with free, or unpaired, electrons--in inner ear tissues. When free radicals react with cell membranes, they can damage or even kill the cells.

Rybak theorized that this happened because the inner ear's normal detoxification system failed. He then began trying to understand how the free radicals were produced and what might be done to protect the inner ear.

"Dr. Rybak's contributions are leading the way toward developing new therapies to prevent hearing loss," said Edwin Rubel, a professor with the University of Washington's Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, in supporting the Outstanding Scholar nomination.

Rybak also has looked at how inner ear cells are normally "remodeled" or replaced in subjects of varying ages, finding that these cells are far more active in mature subjects than was previously thought.

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the National Institutes of Health, has funded Rybak's research since 1985 and has tapped him to serve in various capacities, including on its Board of Scientific Counselors.

Rybak has received the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award (given by the NIH for excellence in research), has served as president of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, and has received the Distinguished Service Award of the American Academy of OtolaryngologyÐHead and Neck Surgery.

--by K. C. Jaehnig, Media & Communication Resources

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