Dr. Akil received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry and Enzymology from the University of Casablanca Morocco. After working as a government administrator in Morocco for two years, he moved to Johns Hopkins where he started his research training, working on the mammalian cochlea and exploring the basis of efferent neuronal transmission and outer hair cell function in the inner ear. Dr. Akil moved to University of California San Francisco in 2004, where he began investigating hearing loss in mouse models of human genetic and acquired form of deafness. His recent work has focused specifically on the restoration of hearing in mice models of human genetic of hearing loss using virally mediated gene therapy.