Dr. Nicolson's lab is interested in the senses of balance and hearing and have undertaken a forward genetics approach with zebrafish to identify genes that are required for function of the auditory/vestibular system. The majority of genes that they have identified thus far are implicated in human hearing loss and vestibular dysfunction. The Nicolson lab's goals are to gain a better understanding of the human disease associated with these genes and to explore the underlying biology using zebrafish as our animal model. Their experiments focus on the function of deafness genes isolated from forward genetic screens and developmental aspects of sensory hair-cell activity and synaptogenesis.