A cure for human deafness just might be swimming alongside
the thousands of zebrafish in muggy rooms across the hall from Texas A&M
University biologist Bruce Riley's office, and a recent renewal of a federal
grant totaling $1.5 million over five years will move him closer to that goal.
Riley studies the inner-ear development of the striped
tropical minnows because the genes of all vertebrates -- the taxonomic category
to which both humans and fish belong -- are remarkably similar.