Angela Ballesteros, Ph.D.

The Section on Sensory Physiology and Biophysics focuses on the relationship between the mechanoelectrical transduction (MET) channel complex and sensory inner ear hair cell physiology.

The lab's broad goal is to decipher the fundamental relationships between the MET apparatus and sensory hair cell homeostasis that underlie sensory hair cell death and survival to prevent hearing loss and balance disorders.

Dr. Ballesteros received her Ph.D. from the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, with a focus on structural biology. After a short postdoctoral position at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she joined NIDCD as a Robert Wenthold postdoctoral fellow under the co-mentorship of Andrew Griffith, M.D., Ph.D., (Dr. Griffith is now at the University of Tennessee) and Bechara Kachar, M.D., to study the molecular biology of proteins essential for hearing. She continued her postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Kenton Swartz, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), focusing on identifying the mechanoelectrical transducer (MET) channel related to the perception of sound and the ability to balance.

Dr. Ballesteros is an NIH Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator and a 2022 NIH Distinguished Scholar.