From birth to adulthood, sound is crucial in our lives. Sadly, 5% of the global population suffers from hearing loss, often due to genetics, medications, loud noise or infections that damage the sensory cells within the inner ear, and particularly the ‘hairs’ on these cells. Our goal is to research and understand what can go wrong in the inner ear, thereby advancing the field to find future treatments and bring back music to everyone’s ears!
Impact
Many challenges must be overcome to cure hearing loss. Currently, there is no treatment available and the inner ear’s deep inside the skull makes it hard to reach. Additionally, once the sensory cells are damaged, they don’t regenerate, which makes hearing loss permanent. Our stem cell models aim to understand, treat, and cure hearing loss by studying how different pathologies impact the human inner ear.
reNEW research
Dr. Heiko Locher and his team have developed human inner ear organoids, a cellular model derived from stem cells, to mimic the human inner ear that allows for disease modelling. In my PhD research, I focus on how toxic medications injure the human sensory cells of the inner ear organoids, and how this damage can be prevented.
Image description
This 100x magnification image of a cochlear inner ear organoid reveals a hair cell pointing towards the lumen. The delicate, hard-to-visualize ‘hairs’ are crucial in hearing and play a key role in related diseases.
Credits
Amy Lucassen, PhD candidate. OtoBiology Leiden, reNEW Leiden, The Netherlands.
