Hearing

Hearing loss and hearing-related conditions affect >500 million people world-wide and are predicted to impact 900 million people by 2025. Patients and clinicians, through initiatives like the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership, have identified advanced diagnostics and novel therapeutics as priorities for future research.

The hearing component of the CRF seeks to address barriers that will aid these therapies to proceed to early-phase trials within the 5-year timescale of the CRF.

Key projects:

  • Biomarker outcomes for tinnitus trials. We will identify biological products that provide reliable markers of tinnitus presence and/or severity for use as outcome measures in intervention trials. Promising candidates include lipid profile, Vitamin B12, Cortisol and derived molecules, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1beta, and interleukin-6, neurotransmitters, Angiotensin converting enzyme and Alpha-Adducin, and markers of oxidative.