UCL Ear Institute - History

History

In 2000 an £11 million grant from the Wellcome Trust was awarded to UCL to fund the creation of a new Centre for Auditory Research bringing together auditory research scientists and clinicians from across the university. The new centre was linked to the long standing Institute of Laryngology and Otology (ILO) and its incorporated School of Audiology. In order to provide this cross-faculty, multidisciplinary group with a unifying identity the ILO was disestablished and the UCL Ear Institute created on 1 January 2005. Prof Tony Wright was its first director, followed by Prof David McAlpine from June 2006.

In December 2006 the results of tests carried out at the Institute were published which showed that many children's toys available that Christmas could damage a child's hearing. In February 2007 the Widex Noise Report, a major survey of noise levels in 41 English towns and cities authored by Deepak Prasher of the UCL Ear Institute, was published. In July 2008 the UCL Ear Institute participated in an architectural jelly competition, with the sound of the competing structures being recorded in one of the Institute's anechoic chambers.

In March 2010 a team including Professor Martin Birchall of the UCL Ear Institute performed the first windpipe transplant using a whole tissue engineered windpipe organ crafted from a patient's own stem cells. In the same month a team from the Institute began a major study to investigate the role of the brain in the auditory process. In August 2010 Aura Satz, the UCL Ear Institute's artist-in-residence, exhibited the results of her work at the Institute in 'Location, location, location' at the Jerwood Space gallery in London. In January 2011 a team including Professor Martin Birchall of the UCL Ear Institute performed the world's second voice box transplant. In June 2011 it was reported that Professor Martin Birchall had been granted permission by the Royal College of Surgeons to carry out the first voicebox transplant trials in the UK.