Paul Albert Fuchs, PhD

Paul Albert Fuchs, Ph.D., joined the Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery department at Johns Hopkins in 1995, after a decade on the Physiology faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  Originally from Fenton, Missouri, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Biology from Reed College, obtained his doctorate in Neurobiology at Stanford University (with Peter Getting and Don Kennedy) then did postdoctoral research there (with John Nicholls) and at Cambridge University (with Robert Fettiplace).  While in Cambridge, Dr. Fuchs met his wife Johanna Marvan.  They have two sons, Toby and Sam (m. Andrea) and grandchildren, Eden and Felix.    

While in Cambridge, Dr. Fuchs applied his training in synaptic electrophysiology to studies of the vertebrate inner ear that continue to this day.  His research is focused on the connectivity of sensory cells and neurons that mediate hearing.  This work helped to uncover the molecular mechanisms of efferent inhibition to the cochlea, and characterized the unusual afferent neurons that may mediate the sensation of painfully loud sound.  His research has been funded continuously by the NIH since 1984 and has been published in over 80 peer-reviewed papers (including Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy) and 30 review chapters. He edited two books on hearing and was a co-author of the fourth and fifth editions of the general neurobiology text, From Neuron to Brain (Sinauer Press).  Dr. Fuchs has lectured in the USA and abroad, including a “Capital Science Evening” at the Carnegie Institute in Washington DC and sessions on National Public Radio’s “Science Fridays”.   

Dr. Fuchs has conducted scientific training worldwide in workshops and lecture courses in Argentina, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, Spain and Uruguay.  In the US he taught neurobiology at NIH, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Jackson Laboratory in Maine, and the Marine Biological Laboratory on Cape Cod, where he directed the NIH-funded laboratory and lecture course, Biology of the Inner Ear from 2013 to 2017.  He has been an advisor to doctoral training programs at Stanford University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Colorado.  He has served on advisory and grant review boards at the NIH, including as member and chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors to the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and as member and chair of the AUD Study Section at the Center for Scientific Review at NIH.  He was president of the international Association for Research in Otolaryngology in 2008.