5-minute Fellowships: Dr Elisa Martelletti – Crosstalk between the immune system and cochlea in hearing loss

By 2050, 2.5 billion people worldwide will be affected by hearing loss, an increase from the 1.9 billion people affected in 2020. Hearing loss can lead to social isolation, one of the major factors in cognitive decline in older people. With her RNID-DMT Fellowship, Elisa wants to find out what comes first, hearing loss or inflammation in the cochlea – the hearing organ inside the inner ear. 

Using two mouse models, Elisa compared the inflammation response inside the cochlea before and after the onset of hearing loss. She looked at the shape and locations of macrophages, the quantity of cytokines (pro-inflammatory markers) and identified and counted the different types of immune cells found in the cochlea. By understanding more about how inflammation works in the inner ear, Elisa hopes new targets can be identified for therapeutic drugs to reverse, stop, or delay hearing loss.