Ear disease model

Hearing loss is one of the most common disabilities affecting over 466 million people and is expected to rise to over 1 billion people globally by 2060. The most common type of hearing disorder is sensorineural loss with the degeneration of hair cells in the inner ear.

Recent advances in stem cell science mean that the regeneration of inner ear hair cells as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of hearing loss has become a promising alternative. We propose an innovative method for generating patient-specific inner ear organoids for drug screening to promote hair cell and neural regeneration for the treatment of Usher syndrome.