Listen Hair

A bald patch in the wrong spot can threaten more than your appearance. Hair cells of the inner ear play a fundamental role in hearing, and damage, disease, or degradation can cause hearing loss. In humans these cells cannot be repaired or replaced, but they can in other species, such as birds and fish, raising hopes that restoration could be possible in the right circumstances. To investigate, a study developed organoids – miniature ear-mimicking structures – from newborn mouse ear tissue (pictured, with hair cells in green) and used these as a platform to speculatively test the impact of over a thousand different drugs. They found that regorafenib, a drug typically used to fight cancer, stimulated hair cell formation. Hair cells even regenerated in tissues after damage caused by chemical exposure. If this translates to humans, it could eventually mean new treatments for hearing loss, and this experimental approach could yield further revelations.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

Website

• Image from work by Qing Liu and colleagues
• MOE Key Laboratory of Model Animal for Disease Study, Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Medical School, Model Animal Research Center of Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in Stem Cell Reports, September 2021