Professor Corné Kros
Trustee and Scientific Advisor
Biography
Corné Kros MD PhD is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Sussex
Corné qualified as a medical doctor at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, in 1984. He took a year out of his medical studies to study physiology at the University of Cambridge. Upon finishing his medical training he returned to Cambridge to do a PhD (completed in 1989), where he pioneered recording ionic currents from inner hair cells, the sensory receptor cells in the cochlea that signal the reception of sound to the brain. In his research career he continued to focus on understanding how sensory transduction by hair cells in the inner ear works, in particular spontaneous activity in pre-hearing inner hair cells and the process of mechano-electrical transduction by which these cells detect sound.
Corné has made a number of important research contributions with potential clinical implications, including the discovery that developing inner hair cells fire spontaneous action potentials before the onset of hearing, to be replaced by graded potentials when the auditory system matures. Another key contribution is the discovery that aminoglycoside antibiotics such as gentamicin, which are ototoxic, enter the hair cells through their mechano-electrical transducer channels.
Corné has been involved with the NDF as a scientific advisor since its inception in 2017, and became a Trustee in 2024. As a Trustee he aims to apply his insights into the physiology of the inner ear to help the NDF to identify and support the most promising approaches to treat the consequences for hearing of mutations in the gene encoding the Norrin protein, with the aim of reducing and ideally preventing hearing loss in Norrie patients. As an amateur musician who is dealing with hearing loss himself, Corné is passionate about all aspects of hearing and about explaining hearing science to patients and their families.