After a decades-long pursuit, researchers have confirmed the identity of the pore of the mechanotransduction channel in vertebrates’ inner ear hair cells.
Researchers reduce the severity of hereditary deafness in mice with the delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 protein-RNA complexes that inactivate a mutant gene in their inner ears.
Using the mutagenic chemical N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea, researchers confirm the role of a gene in a piglet deformity and identify potential models for human diseases.
Deficiency in a protein called pejvakin makes inner ear cells more vulnerable to sound, unable to brace themselves against oxidative stress stimulated by noise.
The surgically implanted device can be tweaked to provide short electric bursts that send a nerve-growing gene into local cells, a study on guinea pigs shows.
A drug applied to the ears of deaf mice has prompted the regrowth of noise-damaged hair cells and resulted in slight improvements in the animals’ hearing.