Bernard Rousseau
Saint Louis University, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
About 30% of US adults will have a voice disorder at some point in their lives. Treatment and lost wages cost close to $13 billion a year, which is comparable to asthma or diabetes.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
Physiology
- Topics
voice disorders
dysphonia
vocal folds
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Quantify how methylprednisolone, a glucocorticoid steroid drug, changes the permeability of the vocal fold epithelial barrier, using in vitro experiments.
- Test in vivo whether methylprednisolone selectively regulates the paracellular pathway, the route between neighboring epithelial cells, to test the hypothesis that vocal fold permeability can be controlled with drugs.
- Establish the safety, indications for use and therapeutic efficacy of methylprednisolone-based regulation of vocal fold permeability, producing the pre-clinical evidence needed before phase I/II/III human trials.
More about the research
Many of these disorders affect the vocal folds, the vibrating tissue in the larynx that produces the voice. A thin layer of epithelial cells covers the vocal folds and acts as a barrier. Controlling what passes through that barrier could give medicines and repair materials a way to reach the tissue underneath.
Why it matters
Voice disorders affect an estimated 20–23 million US adults each year. Current care leaves a large public health need. A drug-based way to open the vocal fold barrier on demand could let doctors deliver treatments, fillers and biomaterials directly into vocal fold tissue. The pre-clinical safety and efficacy data from this work are intended to support future human trials of such treatments for patients with vocal fold disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Donald O Freytes
North Carolina State University, NC·Biomedical Engineering
Identify the molecules in a vocal fold lamina propria extract (VFLPx) that reduce scarring and kill microbes, using proteomic analysis, which profiles all proteins present, and targeted assays.
Laura Toles
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Identify personality traits and daily voice behaviors that come before phonotrauma, by following vocally healthy college freshman singers for three years with personality inventories, ambulatory voice monitoring and high-speed videoendoscopy.
Elizabeth DiRenzo
Stanford University, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Characterize the properties of laryngeal epithelial basal cells, the presumed progenitors of the vocal fold lining, in normal mice using differentiated epithelium, primary culture and three-dimensional tissue-like culture systems.
The school
Saint Louis University: 5 labs on PI Pages, $96M a year on research, 251 research doctorates a year.
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