Research

Hamid Djalilian’s research is focused on four primary areas. The first is the development of devices for treating diseases of the ear, of which the primary one is a novel hearing device that directly vibrates the tympanic membrane. This direct hearing device would theoretically have a sound quality that would be similar to an implantable hearing aid without the need for surgery. Another is a balance augmentation device that combines sensors and gaming technology to assess and rehabilitate imbalance. Additional devices include one focused on the diagnosis and treatment of otitis media, a novel combined vestibular and cochlear implant and a free-standing vestibular implant.

The second area of focus for Djalilian’s laboratory is the development of web-based, customized sound and music therapy for the novel treatment of tinnitus. The work is based on the principle of harmonic therapy and its unique effect on the sources of tinnitus in the brain, and has resulted in a technology transfer to Mind:Set Technologies, which has commercialized this work in beyondtinnitus.com. Clinical trials of various tinnitus therapies are ongoing, including novel drug combinations and electrical stimulation.

Djalilian’s third area of interest is the analysis of large national and state databases of health data to examine trends, outcomes, and factors that influence the treatment of ear diseases and skull-based surgery.

The fourth area is clinical outcomes research related to ENT conditions that have resulted in excellence in translational research. These include innovative treatments for chronic ear infections, tympanic membrane perforations, skull base surgery, cochlear implantation, sudden hearing loss, perilymph fistula and vertigo. Particular areas of interest are migraine-related ear disease and the genetics and novel treatments of Meniere’s disease. In addition, Djalilian is researching novel surgical approaches and treatment of petrous apex lesions, including cholesterol granulomas, cysts and cholesteatomas, among others.

View a list of Hamid Djalilian’s publications.

Edward Kuan’s clinical focus is in three areas: sinonasal inflammatory disease, surgical treatment of sinonasal tumors and endoscopic skull base surgery, including cerebrospinal fluid leaks and encephaloceles, pituitary tumors, sinonasal tumors with intracranial involvement and other intracranial tumors. Of these, his extensive experience performing endoscopic skull base surgery aligns with his academic and research activities. Consequently, his investigations into the clinical outcomes and treatment paradigms following endoscopic sinus, tumor and skull base surgery have led to numerous peer-reviewed publications in otolaryngology, neurosurgery and rhinology journals.

Kuan’s research group, which has a strong track record of consistent productivity, welcomes investigators at all levels, including undergraduates, medical students, residents and fellows. Kuan is a contributing author for the International Consensus Statements of Allergy and Rhinology for both the Endoscopic Skull Base Surgery (July 2019) and Updated Rhinosinusitis (December 2020) guidelines.

With Kuan as site principal investigator, UC Irvine was recently selected as a participating site for the Cole-Reagins Registry for Sinonasal Cancer (CORSICA), which is a multi-institutional collaborative effort to understand the interplay of patient characteristics, tumor biology, and treatment and quality-of-life outcomes in sinonasal malignancies. These tumors are extremely rare and heterogeneous, and very little overall is known about them. Thus, participating in such an initiative is extremely impactful and may help expand counseling and treatment options for these patients.

He is also actively involved in collaborations with other faculty members within biomedical engineering, investigating clinical applications of emerging technologies in rhinology and skull base surgery.

View a list of Edward Kuan’s publications.

Brian Wong’s research centers on the use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) to image airways in two specific pediatric ENT clinical scenarios. OCT utilizes long-wavelength light to penetrate tissue and create high-resolution cross-sectional images (similar to ultrasound but using light rather than sound). Wong’s laboratory designs and constructs OCT instruments for use within the upper airway.

In neonates, Wong’s research focuses on using OCT to image, diagnose and evaluate the progression of subglottic stenosis (SGS) in newborns and infants to avoid the use of more invasive surgical endoscopy, which may cause edema and further scarring. Initial rabbit studies have successfully correlated OCT images with surgical histology and can distinguish edema or scarring in airway tissue; subsequent human studies conducted in association with Gurpreet Ahuja, director of pediatric otolaryngology at UCI Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Orange County, aim to help characterize the tissue microarchitecture of intubated neonatal ICU patients and correlate OCT findings with clinical metrics and results from surgical endoscopy. Providing neonatologists with this anatomic information will enable better management and treatment of SGS.

Wong is also evaluating the use of OCT in older children with upper airway obstruction, commonly caused by adenotonsillar hypertrophy. While adenotonsillectomy (AT) relieves symptoms in most children, it is not beneficial in some, for example, those with craniofacial anomalies, Down syndrome or obesity. Wong’s laboratory is developing the use of OCT to image and measure the upper airway in conjunction with a computational model (direct numerical simulation, DNS) to simulate airflow there and obtain information on flow, pressure and turbulence. Together, OCT/DNS will hopefully be used to obtain information that will improve the accuracy of both selection of appropriate patients for AT surgery and prediction of their response to it. OCT/DNS will also provide an alternative to imaging modalities such as CT and cine MRI that require sedation and computational fluid dynamics, which has limited accuracy.

Zeng Hearing and Speech Laboratory mission statement:

• Conduct innovative research to understand hearing and speech processes and to manage communicative disorders.
• Create an intellectually rich environment to nurture next-generation scientists and engineers in hearing and speech research.
• Disseminate information to the general public and the targeted scientific, professional and patient communities.

Research description:

Fan-Gang Zeng’s research focuses on the encoding of sensory information in normal and impaired auditory systems. His lab tries to understand how simple attributes of sounds, such as loudness and pitch, and how complex sounds, such as speech and music, are encoded in the peripheral and central auditory systems. To address these questions, Zeng’s team integrates information obtained from hearing listeners, hearing-impaired listeners and cochlear-implant listeners, whose hearing is partially restored by electric stimulation of the auditory nerve.