Ear Community visits Seidman Labs at Harvard for Microtia genetics research

Harvard Medical School’s Dr. Jon Seidman and Barbara McDonough with Melissa Tumblin of the Ear Community Organization

Last week on March 25th, 2026, I had the opportunity to meet with our microtia genetics team at Siedman Labs at Harvard Medical School when traveling to Boston! I met with Dr. Jon Seidman and Barbara McDonough, to catch up and discuss our new findings about the increased risk of FOXI3 causing microtia and craniofacial microsomia.

I have known Jon and Barbara for the past 10 years and am incredibly grateful for their passion behind wanting to help find the answers our community is looking for when it comes to what causes Microtia and Craniofacial Microsomia. Visiting them is like visiting with family! Dr. Seidman and Barbara have brilliant minds and are known for their research at Harvard and around the world with Seidman Labs and I am so proud of their passionate work that is at the forefront of genetics research for our microtia community! This is an incredible team we have and I am forever grateful to Dr. Ron Eavey (Vanderbilt) for introducing me to Dr. Seidman! I am also incredibly grateful to Dr. Dan Quiat (Harvard) for his work during our last grant project for microtia and atresia research, including the many researchers who all worked very hard on finding the answers the microtia and atresia community is looking for. While we still have a lot to understand and figure out, the increased risk on FOXI3 is new information and is discussed in our published papers and in the presentation by Dr. Jon Seidman on our website.
Contributing Authors in collaboration with our work include:
Daniel Quiat, Andrew T. Timberlake, Justin J. Curran, Michael L. Cunningham, Barbara McDonough, Maria A. Artunduaga, Steven R. DePalma, Milagros M. Duenas-Roque, Joshua M. Gorham, Jonas A. Gustafson, Usama Hamdan, Anne V. Hing, Paula Hurtado-Villa, Yamileth Nicolau, Gabriel Osorno, Harry Pachajoa, Gloria L. Porras-Hurtado, Lourdes Quintanilla-Dieck, Luis Serrano, Melissa Tumblin, Ignacio Zarante, Daniela V. Luquetti, Roland D. Eavey, Carrie L. Heike, Jonathan G. Seidman and Christine E. Seidman.Genetics research is important to our rare community for so many reasons! As a mother, I can’t tell you how important it is to know about genetic information for our rare cause. This information helps give mothers some peace of mind that they did not do anything during their pregnancy to cause their child’s ear(s) to be missing as well as helping provide some of the missing puzzle pieces when it comes to microtia for our community!

Barbara McDonough – thank you for always taking the time to meet with me and catch up and for always being so welcoming and excited to discuss all things microtia! Thank you for helping change people’s lives with your work and with Drs. Jon and Christine Seidman, everyday!

More information on genetics research for microtia, along with our published papers, can be found on our Ear Community Organization’s website at: https://earcommunity.org/genetic-research-on-microtia-and-aural-atresia/

Thank you,
Melissa Tumblin
Ear Community