Derivation of human ear stem cells from fetal tissues
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Derivation of human ear stem cells from fetal tissues.
IRAS ID
193822
Contact name
Joanne Fletcher
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Hearing impairment affects approximately 10 million people in the UK with large corresponding social and economic impacts for the country. Currently, sound-amplifying hearing aids and cochlea implants are the only available therapies and these have limited (if any) effectiveness for some patient subsets. Regenerative medicine offers hope for individuals not suited to electronic prostheses, with the aim of restoring auditory function by transplanting cells into the inner ears of patients that develop and act in place of the damaged/absent ones. The proposed study forms part of ongoing work being undertaken at the Centre for Stem Cell Biology researching potential cellular therapeutics that could be used to treat hearing problems.
Previously in this lab, human foetal tissue was obtained and used to extract and grow cells from the developing inner ear. These cells have proven invaluable as a reference to the normal process of development, aiding efforts to generate and optimise protocols to guide stem cells to become similar to those found in the human inner ear. These protocols have been used to generate auditory precursor cells from human embryonic stem cells that have been transplanted into deafened gerbils and partially restored hearing.
We are seeking to obtain further foetal tissue to gain deeper insights as to the character of different cells of the developing human inner ear and how these change over the course of development. This will be achieved by the assessment of tissues and cells taken from foetuses of different gestational time-points to analyse gene and protein expression. This information is vital to facilitate improvements to current methods for stem cell manipulation, and produce transplantable cells with better potential for restoring auditory function in people with hearing impairments.REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/NE/0059
Date of REC Opinion
12 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion