Two Assistant Professors in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery won a three-year $1,148,334 award from the Department of Defense for a project called “Developing Viral Strategies for Targeted Hair Cell Regeneration.”
“This is a really exciting collaboration between the McGovern and Cunningham Labs that has immense potential for therapeutic regeneration of inner ear hair cells,” said Chris Cunningham, PhD, referring to Melissa McGovern, PhD.
As Dr. Cunningham explained, many forms of hearing loss involve irreversible loss of sensory cells called hair cells, which are located in the cochlea of the inner ear. At this time, the only therapeutic options for hearing loss cases that involve loss of hair cells are the use of devices including cochlear implants and hearing aids. “These devices are revolutionary and life-changing, but they cannot achieve complete restoration of normal hearing,” he added. “Individuals with these devices often struggle to appreciate music or comprehend speech in noisy environments like parties.”
Dr. McGovern’s lab made a major discovery. “We found that three key hair cell fate inducing transcription factors, Atoh1, Gfi1, and Pou4f3, can activate hair cell identity in non-hair cells in the mature cochlea,” she said. “These factors are critical for hair cell formation during development; however, they can also stimulate hair cell formation by genetic reprogramming.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Cunningham’s lab has been developing strategies to locally deliver therapies directly to the inner ear to target particular types of cells in the cochlea. They have successfully targeted key cell types in the inner ear including hair cells and supporting cells.
“We are teaming up with Dr. Cunningham’s lab to investigate how we can deliver these molecules to the inner ear using a potentially therapeutic route,” Dr. McGovern said.
“This project will focus on determining the proper conditions and the extent to which we can use our gene therapies to regenerate hair cells in adult mice,” Dr. Cunningham said. “The therapeutic potential of our tools for many forms of hearing loss is exciting, but we have much work to do in order to translate our work to the clinic. This is a really important first step.”