Hearing restoration research and finding a cure for hearing loss
Our hearing loss & hearing restoration research strives to enhance the lives of people living with ear and hearing disorders.
The Hearing Therapeutics group provides the foundation and basic science knowledge for the Institute, our team includes scientific disciplines such as biochemistry, microbiology, physiology, and pharmacology and involves laboratory studies with cell cultures, lab studies and physiological experiments.
Our basic science or Hearing Therapeutics team works in close collaboration with the Brain and Hearing Team and the clinicians in Lions Hearing clinic, extending their investigations into behavioural and social sciences as well, which have significant relevance for ear and hearing health.
Highlighted Hearing Therapeutic Group Projects | 2022
Materials to treat eardrum perforation
Developing materials to repair eardrums and other middle ear structures and eluting drugs into the middle ear to treat otitis media.
Scaffolds, implants and hearing aid research aims to develop commercial end-user devices that can aid damaged eardrums.
With the support of a Wellcome Trust Grant and developed in conjunction with Deakin University, ClearDrum is a prosthetic device designed for those with chronic middle ear disease, leading to perforation.
This ground-breaking device, which acts as a whole or partial artificial eardrum, will increase the success rate of surgery for patients and optimise healing.
Lead Researcher | Filippo Valente
Targeted drug discovery and delivery for the inner ear
Designing new drugs to effectively treat drug-induced and age-related hearing loss and prevent hearing loss.
The main areas of hearing research include small molecules, DNA and viable cell targeting the middle and inner ear, using cutting-edge advanced bio-nanotechnology and pharmaceutical sciences.
The research focuses on using bile acids as a bio-nano platform for therapeutic delivery that is well-aligned with global regulatory organisations.
Lead Researcher | Elaine Wong
Curing hearing loss
Using iPS cells for generating inner ear organoids as a platform for drug testing and hair cell restoration.
Gene-based therapeutics research aims to explore two main lines of research enquiries.
The first is the applications of genes in hair cell regeneration to treat hearing impairment. The second is utilising stem cells to generate patient-specific hair cells and recover the hearing loss.
The research includes the newly developed patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cell and inner ear organoid model that will allow the exploration of many aspects of inner ear cell biology and cell engineering in the search for a cure for hearing loss.
Lead Researcher | Elaine Wong
