Announcing 2014 Capita Foundation Auditory Research (CFAR) Grant Award Recipients
Didier A Depireux,
Ph.D.
School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Project Title: “Optimizing
delivery of drugs to the middle ear without tympanostomy”
Over the years, my research has focused on the sense of
hearing, in sickness and in health. In particular, after developing a rat model
of noise-induced tinnitus, I was struck by the lack of methods to deliver drugs
to the ear only, bypassing the severe side-effects of most (for instance, oral)
treatments. Over the last several years, we have developed a magnetically
assisted drug delivery method using biocompatible drug-eluting nanoparticles
which allows us to deliver therapeutic drug levels in the cochlea only. More
recently, we realized that this method could be used to deliver antibiotics and
other drugs from the ear canal to the middle ear, without the need for
tympanostomy tubes.
Our long-term goal is to improve and transform the treatment
of ear infections by delivering medications into the middle ear with
nanoparticles magnetically pushed through the tympanic membrane which remains
intact. Ear infections are the leading cause of visits to pediatricians. In the
US, there are ~15 million cases/yr of acute ear infections in children less
than 5 years of age. About 20% of these children will progress to chronic ear
infections with effusion of fluids in the middle ear. Tympanostomy tube
placement under general anesthesia for the treatment of recurrent or chronic
ear infections is the most common pediatric surgery requiring anesthesia in the
US. This crucial Capita foundation grant will allow us to obtain the
preliminary data necessary to establish the validity of the method and some
optimal parameters for maximal drug delivery.
Jason
A. Beyea, M.D., Ph.D., FRCSC
Ohio State University Eye and Ear Institute
Project Title: “Cochlear Hair
Cell Regeneration using Adipose Stem Cells in NIHL.” This research seeks to use a novel source of stem cells, adipose-derived stem cells, to regenerate lost cochlear hair cells in an attempt to improve hearing in a chinchilla model of noise-induced hearing loss.
