Jose Suarez, an entrepreneur who suffers from tinnitus, and Patrick Nee, a technologist from The Massachusetts Institute and Technology (MIT), founded YourTinnitus.com under exclusive license from McMaster University and with the cooperation of renowned tinnitus experts Dr. Larry Roberts and Dr. Dan Bosnyak from The Human Neural Plasticity Laboratory of The Department of Neuroscience at that university.
We established this website in the belief that adaptation to tinnitus can be assisted by knowledge of how tinnitus is generated by the brain. Many people suffering from tinnitus take comfort in knowing that the scientific community takes the challenge of tinnitus very seriously and is working to assist those coping with this condition.
Dr. Larry Roberts and Dr. Dan Bosnyak are the auditory neuroscientists who originally developed The Tinnitus Exam. Their laboratory studies how experience with sound changes the way that the brain processes auditory stimuli (a phenomenon called “neural plasticity”). They also study how neural plasticity is involved in tinnitus, and the mechanisms underlying this disorder. You can visit their lab and see some of the members of their team by clicking here.
Dr. Larry Roberts:
Larry Roberts obtained his PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1965 and founded the Human Neural Plasticity Laboratory in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Behavior at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). His research has investigated how experience with sound modifies the tuning of neurons in the human auditory cortex (a process called “neural plasticity”) with applications to brain development, musical skill, and deafferentation syndromes of which tinnitus is an example.
From 2002-2008 Roberts was group leader of a consortium of laboratories based in Canada that used physiological, psychoacoustic, brain imaging, and computational methods to investigate the neural basis of tinnitus. Research findings from the group supported the hypothesis (set out by Eggermont and Roberts, Trends in Neurosciences, 2004,27:676-682) that tinnitus occurs when synchronous neural activity develops in regions of the auditory cortex that have been deprived of input from the ear by hearing loss. Computerized tools for the measurement of tinnitus were developed to assess this hypothesis (Roberts et al., Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 2008, 9:417-435).
In addition to his role at McMaster Dr. Roberts directed the MEG laboratory of the Down Syndrome Research Foundation in Vancouver from 2003-2008 and has held Guest Professorships at the University of Tübingen and the Humboldt University (Berlin). In 2004 he was a faculty member in the Summer Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College (USA). His research is supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the American Tinnitus Association, and the Tinnitus Research Initiative.
Dr. Dan Bosnyak:
Dan Bosnyak received his PhD from McMaster University in 2003, with a specialization in human auditory neuroscience. His principal research effort is dedicated to the study of neural plasticity in the human auditory system measured noninvasively with high resolution electroencephalography (EEG) and its magnetic counterpart magnetoencephalography (MEG). Dan’s early studies were among the first to demonstrate neural plasticity in the human auditory system using these methods (Bosnyak et al., Cerebral Cortex 2004, 14:1088-1099) and to distinguish changes occurring in primary auditory cortex from those occurring in secondary auditory areas.
Dan co-directs the Human Neural Plasticity Laboratory at McMaster and has been a principal collaborator in the development of psychoacoustic tools for the measurement of tinnitus. His studies of tinnitus using these tools and brain imaging methods may provide fundamental insight into the mechanisms that generate tinnitus and how the brain reorganizes when deprived of sensory input. Dan’s research is supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Tinnitus Research Initiative.
Jose A. Suarez:
Jose Suarez is the founder of Suarez & Associates, LLC, an innovation, investment and advisory firm based in Connecticut.
Suarez & Associates creates companies and advises and makes investments in businesses that solve large problems, leverage existing networks (such as the Internet), can scale rapidly, and are good for the world. Examples include yappr.com, an international, language-learning social community, MediaBids.com, a marketplace for efficiently buying and selling print media advertising, and this website.
Suarez & Associates serves as an investment-banker advisor to a few, select clients such as Walker Digital, a privately-held, innovation laboratory based in Stamford, Connecticut, founded by prolific inventor Jay Walker. For Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez has secured over $250 million in royalties and investments from industry leaders seeking to partner with it or license its technology. He also restructured over $350 million of Walker Digital's capital during the burst of the Internet bubble.
Mr. Suarez is the former President & COO of Walker Digital, where he managed the creation of a portfolio of more than 1,000 issued and pending U.S. and international patents across a broad range of industries, including gaming, retail, vending, travel, credit card, telecom and ecommerce. He brought many of these innovations to market through licenses, strategic partnerships, and by funding and launching companies that leverage the IP. Walker Digital is best known as the creator of priceline.com, the Internet-based “name-your-own-price” company. Prior to Walker Digital, Mr. Suarez was the start-up COO and General Manager of Priceline WebHouse Club, a titanic $400-million venture to extend the priceline.com model into groceries and gasoline.
Mr. Suarez has started, operated and sold numerous businesses, including an electronic payment processing company and manufacturing plants employing thousands of people throughout Central America. A former real estate developer, Mr. Suarez started his professional career at GE, where he created computer simulation models of manufacturing processes and factories.
Mr. Suarez was born in El Salvador and emigrated to the United States during his country's civil war to attend college. He graduated valedictorian with a 4.00 grade-point-average from Virginia Tech holding a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from The Wharton School.
Mr. Suarez is an avid ultra-runner, who completed the 2007 Western States'100 Mile Endurance Run across the Sierra Nevada in 27 hours, is now training to complete it again in 2010 in under 24 hours, and is trying to convince his partner, Patrick Nee, to join him.
Patrick Nee:
Patrick Nee is a technology entrepeneur who has been working on cutting edge software since the early nineties.
Mr. Nee's startups include a quantitative financial software firm which managed option strategies for billions of dollars of portfolios, CD-ROM based multimedia products, and yappr.com, an international, language-learning social community. Mr. Nee was co-CTO at Priceline WebHouse Club, a $400-million venture to extend the priceline.com model into groceries and gasoline.
Mr. Nee has an undergraduate degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a minor concentration in Japanese. He earned a Masters' degree in engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, where is research was on digital and mechanical control systems for biped walking robots. Mr. Nee also holds a MBA from Columbia University in New York City.
Mr. Nee has lived in New York, Boston, Tokyo, Milano, and Panama City, Panama. He is actively trying to avoid being dragged into ultramarathons with his partner Mr. Suarez, preferring soccer instead.