The purpose of this contract is to maintain and further develop the NIDCD National Temporal Bone, Hearing and Balance Pathology Resource Registry that serves as a national resource for both the public and the biomedical research communities to promote research in the pathology underlying diseases and disorders of hearing and balance. The Registry provides information and outreach services to the public and to health care practitioners on the acquisition of temporal bone and related brain tissues for research purposes. It also serves the biomedical research community by establishing and maintaining a catalog of currently active and inactive human temporal bone and brain tissue collections and by conserving temporal bone and brain collections by brokering the transfer of tissue specimens from inactive collections to active research centers. The Registry enables investigators to identify and locate all available processed temporal bones and related brain tissue specimens held in the United States by clinical and histopathologic diagnoses and other pertinent data so that further studies may be pursued. Additional contract activities will continue to encourage the pursuit of research on the diseases and disorders of hearing and balance, particularly research utilizing the techniques of molecular biology and genetics and cellular biology by: 1) disseminating pertinent information to the auditory and vestibular research communities, 2) developing and fostering a program of professional education on pathology of the auditory and vestibular systems, and 3) encouraging investigator collaborations in the study of the human temporal bone and the related brain structures of hearing and balance.
