Hurdles for Hearing Restoration

Given the diverse cell types and complex structure of the human inner ear, will researchers ever be able to re-create it?

Written byBernd Fritzsch

| 4 min read

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Hearing loss is as much part of growing old as are cancer and Alzheimer’s, and with the silver tsunami of baby boomers now becoming senior citizens, the impact of age-related hearing loss is becoming increasingly significant. Ongoing research over the last 25 years into gene therapies to correct certain congenital forms of hearing loss appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough, and cell therapies are promising to replace damaged hair cells of the inner ear. (See “Hearing Help.”) But can these achievements be translated to the restoration of age-related hearing loss? As promising and exciting as these data are, researchers still face a monumental challenge in rebuilding aging inner ears. Piecing together such a complex and delicate organ is not as simple as ...

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