Induced pluripotent stem cells: Landscape for studying and treating hereditary hearing loss

Hearing loss (HL) is one of the most widespread sensory disorders, affecting approximately 1 in 500 newborns. Heritable diseases of the inner ear are the leading causes of prelingual HL. Treating of hereditary HL and understanding its underlying mechanisms remain difficult challenges to otolaryngologists. As stem cells are capable of self-renewal and differentiation, they are ideally suited both for disease modeling and regenerative medicine. Recently, description of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) has allowed the field of disease modeling and personalized therapy to become far more accessible and physiologically relevant, as iPSCs can be generated from patients of any genetic background. This review briefly describes the advantages of iPSCs technology and discusses potential applications of this powerful biological tool in studying and treating hereditary HL.