After 11 years of intensive research, scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have succeeded in using gene therapy to grow new auditory hair cells and restore hearing in deafened adult guinea pigs, a major step forward in the search for new ways to treat hearing loss in humans. Results from the study, the first to demonstrate restoration of auditory hair cells at the structural and functional levels in mature living mammals appears in Nature Medicine’s advance online publication Web site. Hair cells are the sensory cells of the auditory and balance organs in the inner ear. Auditory hair cells reside in the organ of Corti, which is part of the cochlea – a spiral-shaped bony organ in the inner ear. They get their name from the numerous microscopic hair-like projections that grow from each cell.
