Dr. Zheng-Yi Chen’s research interests include the understanding of the causes of hearing loss, the development of treatment by inner ear regeneration, gene editing, and gene therapy.

One of the most common causes of hearing loss is the loss of hair cells, the inner ear sensory cells that detect sound and sense balance. Regeneration of these hair cells in the adult mammalian inner ear has been the most prominent obstacle to overcome. Dr. Chen’s laboratory takes a functional genomics approach to systematically study gene expression patterns during mouse inner ear development.

Dr. Chen's laboratory has identified the retinoblastoma gene (Rb1) as the key gene controlling cell exit in hair cells and supporting cells, with implication in hair cell regeneration in young mammalian inner ears. Using chicken and zebrafish models, they identified key genes including c-Myc in hair cell regeneration in lower vertebrates. They demonstrated that the reprogramming by two factors c-Myc and Notch1 is sufficient to induce proliferation of hair cells and supporting cells in adult and aged mammalian inner ears, resulting in regeneration of functional hair cells.

His laboratory is currently working on elucidating the mechanisms underlying proliferation and regeneration. They are also developing strategies to regenerate adult hair cells for hearing restoration in animal models. Their goal is to develop a treatment for hearing loss by inner ear regeneration in humans.

Dr. Chen’s laboratory also has a long-standing interest in genetic hearing loss. The laboratory has been involved in cloning and characterizing numerous deafness genes. Though more than one hundred genetic deafness genes have been identified, no therapy is currently available. The next frontier in genetic hearing loss is the development of treatment.