The hair cells present in the auditory portion of the inner ear – the organ of Corti in the cochlea - are indispensable to the transmission of sound to our brain. Unfortunately, when these cells are destroyed they are not replaced resulting in  hearing impairments or even deafness. Brigitte Malgrange and her team of the Research Unit of the Developmental Neurobiology of GIGA are working on an important line of research involving the regeneration of hair cells in the cochlea:  they have discovered that when the expression or function of Ephrin-B2 protein is inhibited, the cochlear supporting cells transdifferentiate into hair cells. This enabled them to create new hair cells at the right place in the organ of Corti.

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(1) Jean Defourny, Susana Mateo Sánchez, Lies Schoonaert, Wim Robberecht, Alice Davy, Laurent Nguyen & Brigitte Malgrange. Cochlear supporting cell transdifferentiation and integration into hair cell layers by inhibition of ephrin-B2 signalling. Nature Communications, 2015-04-29 , DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8017