Several commonly prescribed medications that are extremely effective at controlling a targeted disease such as tuberculosis, or alleviating symptoms such as chronic pain, can also destroy a patient’s ability to hear. These ototoxic agents include some antibiotics and narcotic analgesics, the latter being subject to abuse and especially dangerous in view of a tendency toward tolerance, dependency and addiction. Often deafness results when the patient vastly exceeds the prescribed dosage. Most ototoxic drugs attack one particular target: auditory sensory cells, most precisely the outer hair cells of the inner ear. One of the mysteries is why these drugs target primarily the sensory cells and no other cells in the inner ear. Other questions under investigation are how the ototoxic drug activates a signaling mechanism inside the auditory cell that induces the cell to die, what signaling mechanisms are they, and how we can prevent the cell death. Dr. Federico Kalinec and his research team are focused primarily on the auditory sensory cells – how they function normally as well as dysfunction in pathologies leading to hearing loss. He and his team are investigating the prevention of hearing loss induced in vivo and in vitro by ototoxic antibiotics (e.g. gentamicin), antineoplastic agents (cisplatin), and narcotic painkillers e.g. Vicodin™). They are also seeking a chemical compound with the ability to protect sensory cells against ototoxic attack. One promising substance they are exploring is the use of L-carnitine (LCAR), a safe micronutrient that plays a role in energy metabolism and detoxification, as a preventive measure against drug-induced hearing loss. Dr. Kalinec was born in Argentina and received his undergraduate degrees in physics and doctoral degree in biophysics from the University of Cordoba, Argentina. Following his graduate education, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Hearing Research and Neuroscience at the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health (NIDCD-NIH). He joined the House Ear Institute in 1996. He is a principal investigator in the Division of Cell Biology and Genetics. Dr. Kalinec also holds positions as Associate Faculty Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Neurobiology at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine. He is member of several professional organizations, and has published extensively in his field of expertise, most recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Biophysical Journal, British Journal of Pharmacology, Hearing Research, and Journal of Biological Chemistry. He has received several grants and awards, including the Research Excellence Award from the NIDCD-NIH.