A novel gene therapy approach has given five children who were born deaf the ability to hear. The method, which overcomes a roadblock presented by large genes, may be useful in other treatments, according to researchers.

Loss of the inner ear sensory cells, the hair cells, is considered one of the most common causes of hearing loss that is generally permanent. Using single-cell RNAseq, advanced imaging, electrophysiology, and lineage tracing, Yizhou Quan, Zheng-Yi Chen, and colleagues identified a cocktail of drug-like molecules that effectively reprograms fully mature wildtype supporting cells for hair cell regeneration, representing a step forward for hearing restoration by HC regeneration.

Nurunisa Akyuz of the Corey lab describes a new study focused on the inner-ear mechanosensory channel, TMC1 (Transmembrane Channel Like 1). Structural modeling, mutagenesis, viral gene delivery and hair-cell physiology experiments were used to determine aspects of TMC1 gating.

HMS News article on new research from Matthew Crowson, Christopher Hartnick, and colleagues at HMS and Mass. Eye and Ear. They built an artificial intelligence model that they have shown to outperform clinicians in diagnosing pediatric ear infections.

HMS News article profiling the research of Bruce Bean and Clifford Woolf, who are studying how CBD inhibits pain-sensing neurons in order to develop more effective pain medicines.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Samuel Mehr and colleagues, co-first authors Courtney Hilton and Cody J. Moser. They studied 21 cultures, from San Diego to East Africa and found striking similarities in infant-directed speech and song.

HMS News article on new research from Hadine Joffe and colleagues, first author Alexandra Z. Sosinsky, showing that females are underrepresented in key disease clinical trials, with the largest gap observed in psychiatric clinical trials.

HMS News article on the development of a new word-score model from Stéphane Maison and colleagues, first author Kelsie J. Grant, which leads to better evaluations of cochlear nerve damage.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.

HMS News article on a new discovery by Sean Megason and colleagues, first author Akankshi Munjal, of mechanical process by which sheets of cells morph into the delicate, looping semicircular canals of the inner ear.

The Tan-Yang Center seeks a Program Manager who will be responsible for planning scientific events and outreach activities, running a postdoctoral fellowship program, managing a website, newsletter, and social media, developing new community-building activities, and liaising with the related scientific and administrative units at Harvard University, as well as our sister Center at the McGovern Institute at MIT.

Aleena Garner, a new faculty member in the Department of Neurobiology at HMS, describes her latest research, together with Georg Keller of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, on how neural circuits between auditory and visual cortex communicate learned associations and create predictions. They show that experience with an audio-visual stimulus reshapes direct input from auditory cortex to visual cortex—suppressing predictable visual input to amplify the unpredictable.

HMS News article on new research from Albert Edge and colleagues, first author Yushi Hayashi, identifying the role of the protein behind rare Norrie disease.

HMS News article on research from the labs of David Corey and Wesley Wong, first author Eric Mulhall, providing new insight into the functioning of the tip link—the tiny apparatus of hair cells in the ear that converts auditory signals into electrical ones.

Congratulations to Masahito Yamagata, Isle Bastille, Kadir Ozkan, Carla Carol Winter, Ayush Noori, and Clara Muñoz-Castro

Kameron Clayton shares new research from the lab of Daniel Polley. Using a combination of physiological and anatomical tools to access specific types of cortical neurons, they demonstrate that descending projection neurons in mouse auditory cortex are active prior to movements that are expected to generate sound.

Gwenaelle Geleoc shares her lab's new research into improving hearing and balance in mice. They targeted an Acadian human mutation in a gene essential for hearing and vision using local applications of antisense oligonucleotides.

HMS News article on new research from the lab of M. Charles Liberman, first author Pei-zhe Wu, on a new study that uncovers damage to hair cells as an underlying cause of age-related hearing loss.

HMS News article on new research from the labs of Konstantina Stankovic and Albert Edge, first authors Richard Seist and Mingjie Tong, suggesting that bone disease medications may reverse hearing loss.

BCH Discoveries article on new research from the labs of Jeffrey Holt, David Liu, and colleagues at the Broad and MIT, co-first authors Wei-Hsi Yeh and Olga Shubina-Oleinik, restoring hearing in deaf mice using a new genetic engineering technique.

HMS News article on new research from the lab of Zheng Yi-Chen, joint first authors Yilai Shu, Wenyan Li, Mingqian Huang, and Yi-Zhou Quan, introducing a new strategy to reprogram and regenerate inner-ear cells.

HMS News article on new research from the lab of Stéphane Maison suggesting that chronic conductive hearing loss may interfere with speech recognition deficits.

HMS News article on new research from the labs of David Corey, Jeffrey Holt and Gwenaëlle Géléoc. They used a newly optimized gene-editing tool to prevent hearing loss in mice with hereditary deafness without detectable off-target effects.

Harvard Gazette story on new work from the labs of Jeffrey Holt, David Corey and colleagues, revealing identity of a sensor protein that helps inner ear hair cells translate sound and head movements into electrical signals that the brain can process

Ana Pereira and Yun Zhang describe a new project that was recently awarded funding from the Dean's Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship

HMS News article highlighting new work on sensory neuron diversity in the inner ear, from the labs of Lisa Goodrich and Charles Liberman at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear

An eLife press release on new work from the labs of Yun Zhang and Joshua Kaplan, exploring how C. elegans sense and avoid nitric oxide in their environments