Hearing Health Foundation

View Original

Hearing Health Newsletter: January 2025

Yishane Lee

Hearing Restoration Project member Ksenia Gnedeva, Ph.D., and team identified key gene regulators that enable some deafened animals—including fish and lizards—to naturally regenerate their hearing. They uncovered a class of DNA control elements known as “enhancers” that helps induce a suite of genes required to make sensory cells of the inner ear. Their findings inform efforts to regenerate hair cells in humans.

Image: In the zebrafish inner ear, supporting cells (magenta) give rise to new sensory hair cells (blue). The research reveals a set of DNA control elements critical for supporting cells to regenerate hair cells after injury in zebrafish, lizards, and other regenerative species. Credit: Tuo Shi/Crump and Lozito Labs/USC Stem Cell

  • Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are a common tool to deliver genes to neurons, but the efficacy of different AAV types varies. Emerging Research Grants scientist Timothy Balmer, Ph.D., tested six AAV types in the mouse brain and reported the results in eNeuro, an open-access journal, in order to reduce redundant experiments for the many labs studying the brain. 

  • HHF board member Anil K. Lalwani, M.D., also the head our Council of Scientific Trustees overseeing the Emerging Research Grants program, details four important breakthroughs in hearing research from 2024 and how each also connects back to Hearing Health Foundation. (He has a new breakthrough himself to share: creating a microneedle tiny and sharp enough to deliver gene therapy to the inner ear.)

  • HHF board member Sophia Boccard shares an update about surviving Usher syndrome as a parent of two young boys and living in Mexico (also available in Spanish).

Plus:

Monday, Jan. 13: Research Webinar: “Does What We Hear Matter for Balance?”
People with hearing loss are at an increased risk for falls, yet sounds are not usually included in clinical assessments for balance, and people with hearing loss are not typically screened for balance impairments and fall risk. A 2019 Emerging Research Grants scientist, Anat Lubetzky, Ph.D., will describe her interdisciplinary journey into the world of sounds and balance together with music technologists, computer scientists, and clinicians. Register here.

Emerging Research Grants applications are due March 3: Funding opportunities (U.S. only) are up to $50,000 per year, renewable for a second year. These grants are aimed at early stage investigators with these four topics open to researchers at any career stage: central auditory processing disorder, Ménière’s disease, pain hyperacusis, and tinnitus. Learn more about applying.

Investigators and clinicians are invited to a Ménière’s Disease Symposium co-hosted by HHF on Friday, Feb. 21, at the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) MidWinter Meeting in Orlando.

Around the Web:

Products and services are not endorsed by Hearing Health Foundation. Links provided are for informational purposes only and may require registration or subscription. Links to time-sensitive events may expire.