Scientific leader
Christine Petit
The aim of the financial endowment of the DIM is to enable the first laboratories dedicated to gene therapy to deal with auditory damage at the national level, through the acquisition of starting equipment. These laboratories will be located in the Institute of Hearing, rue de Charenton, Paris XII, which will open in early 2019. This center for interdisciplinary research of auditory neuroscience includes, among others, the pioneers of genetic analysis of the hearing and deafness. In the direct line of deciphering the pathogenesis of a very large number of hereditary deafness they have performed, their work aims today to prevent and treat these hearing damage. While dedicated laboratories are being developed, the gene therapy project has improved in two directions. He first provided proof of concept of animal feasibility of gene therapy of the inner ear (treatment of auditory and vestibular disorder to a form of Usher syndrome). He has made a connection with ENT departments in the Paris region, in order to prepare therapeutic trials in humans: a joint reflection is conducted which mainly focuses on the choice of the first forms of deafness to be treated and the selected methods of gene correction.
Funding
DIM
Laboratory
63 Rue de Charenton
75 012 Paris
