There are no FDA-approved drugs for treating hearing loss, aside from steroids, which are often not very effective. Researchers are working to find solutions, and when they do, they'll need an effective way to get those drugs into the inner ear.
That's where Daniel Sun, M.D., director of the Division of Neurotology, associate professor of otolaryngology in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and a UC Health physician, and his team come in.
"I like to make the analogy of launching astronauts into space," he says. "We need to not only understand how the spaceship that the astronaut sits in works, but also systematically design the rocket itself so that it can lift the capsule into space. What we work on is designing the rocket that can get these medications into the ear."
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Sun was awarded a more than $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders while working at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He relocated about a year ago in order to work with material scientists at UC.
Millions of Americans experience hearing loss of some form, and the likelihood of hearing loss increases with age.
Sun and his colleagues are studying how magnetic nanoparticles might be used to carry and steer medications to the parts of the ear where the hearing loss is occurring. He says they've been able to design specialized nanoparticles that can penetrate the ear while carrying and delivering some of these newer medications.
"One specific advantage with using these kind of nanoparticles is that they could be administered in a very minimally invasive way," says Sun. "Rather than having to administer these medications through a very delicate surgical procedure in the inner ear that requires general anesthesia and may have risks to further hearing loss, these nanoparticles with the medications they carry could potentially be just injected in a clinic and then penetrate into the inner ear without need for surgery or anesthesia."
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Using nanoparticles in medicine isn't new. They've been used in other forms of treatment like imaging, cancer treatment and for kidney disease. Sun says this approach is different because it employs a magnetic field to steer the particles where they need to go.
"They have a little magnetic core, and they're biocompatible. And having this magnetic core, it's one way that could potentially allow a minimally invasive way to get these particles into the ear because, once they're administered, we're looking at using a magnetic field to actually pull them into the inner ear where hearing loss is happening."
Sun says the idea is cutting-edge and will be in development still for several years. They are currently doing some testing on animal models but it will be a while before they move into clinical studies.
The University of Cincinnati is a financial supporter of Cincinnati Public Radio.
