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November 28, 2007
UVa Researchers Lend Aid to Future Hearing Studies
Researchers at the University of Virginia have developed a new method of growing inner-ear hair cells that will aid research to help people regain their hearing.
Dr. Jeffrey T. Corwin, a professor of neuroscience at the UVa Health System, and Dr. Zhengqing Hu, a neuroscience research assistant, have been growing cells from inner ears of chicken embryos. They hope to extend that knowledge to re-grow the inner-ear hair cells of humans.
Mammals grow inner-ear hair cells only before they are born, unlike amphibians and birds, which can re-grow damaged or lost cells. These unique structures are lost over time as mammals age, or if they contract certain infections or undergo trauma. The loss of inner-ear hair cells results in hearing loss and balance impairment.
Hu and Corwin’s process is able to grow chicken inner-ear hair cells in a laboratory setting.
“[Hu] began this experiment by breaking a lot of chicken eggs for a couple of weeks so he could find embryos partially formed in a chicken egg,” Corwin said. “We wanted to get the cells at a point where they were still dividing.”
The scientists carefully isolate the cells and grow them in culture dishes, transferring them to larger dishes as needed. The process can take five or six weeks, Hu said.
“I usually spend almost one day to do the dissection and separate the cells,” Hu said. “You have to culture the cells carefully and gradually. Once the cell number reaches 1 million, then I [harvest] the cells.”
Corwin said this method of growing the cells would be more reliable than others.
“Instead of any scientist who wants to research hearing, deafness or balance having to do a more careful micro-dissection, it’s possible to have a frozen vial of the cells and grow them under standard lab conditions,” Corwin said.
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Posted by 4HL on November 28, 2007 7:14 AM
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