Targeted regeneration of auditory neurons using gene transfer
Dr Rachael Richardson
Principal Investigator
Research Assistants
Ms Brianna Flynn
Ms Courtney Suhr
Beatrice Sgro
UROP Student
Dr Andrew Wise
Research Fellow
Prof Robert Shepherd
Prof Stephen O'Leary
Collaborating Reseacher
The University Of Melbourne
The bionic ear electrically stimulates hearing nerves helping profoundly deaf people to communicate. But deafness causes hearing nerves to degenerate and die. In this project, targeted gene therapy will be used to express growth factors (neurotrophins) in the inner ear to preserve and regenerate nerve cells after deafness in combination with cochlear implantation. With this research, we aim to control the direction of regenerating nerve fibers and recreate near-normal hearing with a cochlear implant.
Funding
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People
Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation
Confocal image of the organ of Corti of the cochlea (top-down view) showing the response of auditory neurons (red)
to neurotrophin gene expression mediated by adenovirus (green).
The organ of Corti is indicated by the dotted lines. Other cells in the organ of Corti are shown in blue.
This project is investigating how dendrites from auditory neurons respond to localised regions of neurotrophin gene expression.