Karen Steel

Karen Penelope Steel FRS FMedSci is a British scientist who studies the genetics of deafness, using the mouse as a model to identify the genes involved and to understand the molecular, cellular and physiological mechanisms involved. She is Professor of Sensory Function at the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King's College London. Previously she was Principal Investigator of the Genetics of Deafness research programme at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

She had a leading role in the collaboration that uncovered Myo7a, the first gene to be implicated in deafness in mice and in humans. Most recently, she led the discovery of Mir-96 microRNA that is implicated in progressive hearing loss in mice and humans.

Together with Professor Christine Petit, Steel won the Royal Society Brain Prize 2012, for pioneering work on the genetics of hearing and deafness. Provided by Wikipedia