Speaker
Description
Inner ear disorders (e.g., hearing loss) are common, but it is difficult to develop a therapeutic drug and to find a specific mechanism because of a lack of the research platforms. Inner ear organoids (IEO) are perceiving as an innovative research platform to reproduce the complex inner ear systems and to solve the previous problems. To improve uniformity and reproducibility of IEO, we develop a microengineered system that can collect cells and form aggregates rapidly. Using microengineered system, we can easily control the size of aggregates by the initial cell number and find the optimal condition to develop mature IEO. Compared with the traditional approach to develop IEO (i.e., IEO grown on U well plate; U-IEO), it is possible to develop IEO with the mass production and more reproducible shape. In addition, IEO grown on microengineered system (M-IEO) have an improved functions including the formation of mature kinocilia and the electrophysiological function than U-IEO. Thus, we conclude M-IEO may have great potential to overcome the limitations of the traditional approach, and it may be used as an advanced platform for inner ear disorder.
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