Stefan Heller

Honors and Awards

• Member, Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum (9/2011)
• Edward C. and Amy H. Sewall Professor, Stanford School of Medicine (7/ 2010)
• McKnight Neuroscience of Brain Disorders Award, McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience (2005-2007)
• Albert and Ellen Grass Faculty Grant Award, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA (Summer 2004, Summer 2005)
• James Wiggins Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School (4/2005)

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

Lars Becker,  Megan Ealy,  Milica Gakovic,  Zhaohua Guo,  Byron Hartman,  Meike Herget,  Mohammad Ronaghi,  Mirko Scheibinger,  Joerg Waldhaus

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Molecular and Cellular Physiology
• Neurosciences

Internet Links

• Heller Lab Website

Industry Relationships

Stanford is committed to ethical and transparent interactions with our industrial and other commercial partners. It is our policy to disclose payments (exclusive of travel support) from, and/or equity in, companies or other commercial entities to Stanford faculty of $5,000 or more in total value, as well as any equity in a privately held company, when the faculty member also has institutional responsibilities related to his or her interactions with the company. View Full Information

Current Research Interests

Our current research aligns along three major routes.

First, we are interested how sensory hair cells develop and function. Of particular interest to us are proteins that control hair bundle development and proteins that are important for hair bundle function and synaptic vesicle trafficking.

Second, we have a strong focus on hair cell regeneration. Toward this goal, we are working on in vitro culture conditions for murine and human stem cells that re-create inner ear development in the culture dish. This work encompasses placodal development and prosensory specification, and it stretches toward investigating the formation of sensory epithelia as well as hair cell and supporting cell subtype specification. Another goal is to investigate the regenerative potential of organ of Corti supporting cell subtypes.

Finally, we are currently embarking on a project to characterize human hair cells and supporting cells generated from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells. We are focusing on the nonsyndromic genetic hearing loss genes MYO15 (encoding myosin 15 and GJB2 (encoding connexin 26).

Publications

• Concise review: inner ear stem cells-an oxymoron, but why? Ronaghi M, Nasr M, Heller S. Stem Cells. 2012; 30 (1): 69-74
• Gpr126 is essential for peripheral nerve development and myelination in mammals. Monk KR, Oshima K, Jörs S, Heller S, Talbot WS. Development. 2011; 138 (13): 2673-80
• Intrinsic regenerative potential of murine cochlear supporting cells. Sinkkonen ST, Chai R, Jan TA, Hartman BH, Laske RD, Gahlen F, Sinkkonen W, Cheng AG, Oshima K, Heller S. Sci Rep. 2011: 1 26
• Oriented collagen as a potential cochlear implant electrode surface coating to achieve directed neurite outgrowth. Volkenstein S, Kirkwood JE, Lai E, Dazert S, Fuller GG, Heller S. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2011
• Serial analysis of gene expression in the chicken otocyst. Sinkkonen ST, Starlinger V, Galaiya DJ, Laske RD, Myllykangas S, Oshima K, Heller S. J Assoc Res Otolaryngol. 2011; 12 (6): 697-710