As a Co-Director of the Holt/Géléoc Lab at Boston Children's Hospital, Dr. Gwenaelle Géléoc is interested in the functional disruptions that are caused by mutations in hair cell genes, particularly those that cause congenital auditory and vestibular disorders in humans. Armed with a better understanding of hair cell function and dysfunction, she aims to identify methods to protect or restore function in the sensory cells of the inner ear.

Her passion for inner ear research began as an undergraduate student at the University of Montpellier in France, where she first saw a sensory hair cell under the microscope. During her graduate studies, she recorded the first mechanotransduction currents from vestibular hair cells of the mammalian inner ear and realized that there was much to be learned by analyzing the pattern of functional developmental of inner ear hair cells around the time of birth.

Precisely how and when hair cells acquire mechanosensitivity is a major focus of her ongoing research.