Anya Osborn
School of Life Sciences
Assessment of cells associated with age-related hearing loss
Age-related hearing loss is thought to be caused by the degeneration of cells called
fibrocytes in the inner ear. Our hypothesis is that replacing these fibrocytes may
prevent this degeneration and restore this type of hearing loss. But before this, there
must be a comparison of between the original fibrocytes and the replacement
fibrocytes in terms of whether they appear and function in a similar way. The aim
being to characterise the properties the fibrocytes possess which are involved in
functioning of the hearing process. Confirmation that the replacement fibrocytes that
are grown in the laboratory express similar characteristics to the original fibrocytes in
the organism will allow us to develop a novel strategy for growing these cells in a
transplantable form.
Postgraduate Conference 2016
Page 42