Western University has been given a multi-million dollar donation to further its research into hearing implants.
MED-El, an Austria-based hearing implant company, has given the post secondary institution $8.5 million for the work. Western matched the donation to establish two new endowed research chairs – one in neurotology and translational hearing innovation and the other in auditory biophysics and engineering. The two chairs are tasked with independently pursuing innovative hearing technology research, the university said.
“We want to learn more about the ear and to come up with better solutions to deal with hearing loss of all kinds,” said Ingeborg Hochmair, MED-EL co-founder and CEO. “With these chairs, we hope to facilitate cooperation between implant developers, researchers, surgeons, and patients to make that happen.”
Longtime research partners, Dr. Sumit Agrawal and Hanif Ladak, have been named the inaugural research chairs. Agrawal is a clinician-scientist, while Ladak is a biomedical engineer. The pair have been focused on customizing cochlear implant programming, which moves away from a one-size-fits-all approach to a device that takes into account a patient’s specific anatomy.
Agrawal and Ladak created a customized mapping tool that identifies how electrodes on the cochlear implant should be programmed for each individual patient. The tool was created using information from high-resolution 3D visualizations of the cochlea. The pair then worked with a researcher in Sweden to determine the anatomic details within the images.
Their work currently has them leading a randomized controlled trial in partnership with the University of North Carolina.
"We are grateful for the donation from MED-EL," said Ladak, who is also a professor at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and the Faculty of Engineering. "It's creating opportunities that will evolve the cochlear implant technology further to improve outcomes for patients. As a biomedical engineer, being able to impact patients at this scale is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 700 million people worldwide, or one in every 10 people, will suffer disabling hearing loss by 2050.