Although cochlear implants (CI) are now regarded as the standard of care for individuals with profound hearing loss and the modern devices provide significant improvement in word understanding in quiet environments, CIs still have limitations for hearing in noisy, real-world settings.

CSD's Inyong Choi, PhD, and Yu-Hsiang Wu, MD, PhD, are contributing their research expertise to the Iowa CI Clinical Research Center, a multi-disciplinary group taking on that challenge. The Center recently received a five-year, $13.8 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, bringing the total funding for the center to more than $76 million over 43 years.

Led by Co-Principal Investigators Bruce Gantz, MD and Marlan Hansen, MD, from UI's Department of Otolaryngology, Choi and Wu join researchers from the UI Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery, as well as Otolaryngology.

Reflecting on the longevity of cross-campus collaborations, Gantz notes the critical importance of teamwork and the difference the work has made in the lives of the patients.

"There’s a saying that silos belong on farms, not in a university,” he said. “The UI provides an ideal environment for teamwork. The ability to integrate is seamless here—we share probably better than most academic centers—I think that's a testament to what Iowa is all about."