News

Today (3rd March) is World Hearing Day. This year, the theme of the World Health Organization’s annual campaign day is about changing mindsets towards ear and hearing care. 

As the WHO encourages individuals of all ages to “empower themselves to ensure healthy ears and hearing for themselves and others”, researchers at Nottingham BRC’s Hearing Theme are reflecting on their research programmes, which aim to improve – and transform – hearing health for many patients in the UK and beyond.

Dr Derek Hoare, theme lead for Hearing at the Nottingham BRC, commented:
“At our BRC, we conduct a wide range of research that makes a substantial difference to the quality of life for people living with hearing disorders, which incur a considerable human cost and affect 18 million people in the UK alone.

“While hearing conditions remain under investigated nationally, our Nottingham-led BRC research programme aims to make tangible ‘real world’ improvement in patients’ everyday lives, and it may also lead to a transformative groundbreaking shift in treatment within the next few years.”

Here is a taste of some of the activity underway to improve hearing health.

Ground-breaking shift in regenerative medicine

A first-in-human clinical trial investigating Rincell-1, a regenerative cell-based therapy for hearing loss, will soon launch at three UK hospital sites: Cambridge, Guy’s and St Thomas’, and Birmingham.

Pending regulatory approval, recruitment is expected to begin later this year, with Professor Doug Hartley from Nottingham BRC as Chief Investigator. Professor Hartley is also the Chief Medical Officer at Rinri Therapeutics, the company developing Rincell-1.

Hearing loss affects nearly half a billion people worldwide, with neural hearing loss—caused by damage to the auditory nerve—being a significant and currently untreatable form of the condition. Unlike sensorineural hearing loss, which may be managed with hearing aids or cochlear implants, there are no existing therapies capable of repairing or regenerating auditory nerve function. Rincell-1 aims to address this critical gap by using otic neural progenitor cells. In preclinical studies, these have demonstrated the ability to engraft, mature, and restore neural connections necessary for hearing.

This trial will evaluate the safety and potential efficacy of a single injection of Rincell-1, administered during cochlear implant surgery, compared to standard CI surgery alone. The Nottingham Hearing BRC has been instrumental in developing the trial, contributing to innovative surgical techniques, patient involvement, and objective measures of neural health.

If successful, Rincell-1 could represent a groundbreaking shift in regenerative medicine. It would offer hope where no treatment currently exists for those affected by neural hearing loss.

“It takes two to talk”

Meanwhile, a groundbreaking new study, the IMPACT trial - funded by the NIHR Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme with a £1.9 million grant - is set to investigate whether parent participation in the “It Takes Two to Talk” (ITTT) training programme can improve language development in deaf children with cochlear implants. The study is a collaboration with the University of Nottingham, and Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit (NCTU), and will soon submit its ethics application.

Cochlear implants restore hearing in deaf children, but many still struggle with language development. Currently, NHS care provides speech and language therapy directly to children but does not routinely involve parents in structured language development strategies. ITTT, a parent-led training programme that has been shown to improve language skills in children with normal hearing, could offer a low-cost, accessible solution to enhance communication outcomes in children with cochlear implants.

The trial aims to recruit 158 families across 10 UK clinics, randomly assigning them to receive either ITTT training plus standard NHS care or standard care alone. Researchers will assess language development, parent-child interactions, and broader developmental outcomes to understand the programme’s impact.

Identifying top research priorities in dementia and hearing conditions

In 2024, over 500 members of the public contributed to the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) in Co-existing Dementia and Hearing Conditions. The PSP was led by researchers from the Nottingham BRC in partnership with people with lived experience of dementia and hearing conditions, clinicians, and representatives from RNID, Alzheimer's Research UK, and Alzheimer’s Society.

The PSP produced a national agenda to shape future research about co-existing dementia and hearing conditions, which will be shared with the public later this year.
This agenda includes a list of top priorities for future studies, which span a range of topics including risk reduction, mechanisms, treatment, diagnosis, social care, and awareness raising. Proactive steps were taken throughout, including British Sign Language translations and targeted outreach, to ensure that the PSP was accessible to diverse contributors.

Overcoming the barriers to using hearing aids

Patients often say that there can be many barriers to overcome when hearing aids are first prescribed and that they would benefit from additional support.

Nottingham BRC worked in partnership with people who have hearing aids, and NHS audiologists, to coproduce text-messages for new hearing aid users. Researchers iteratively refined the messages to ensure that they are accessible, engaging and aligned to patient need.
The text messages send additional information and support to patients at a critical timepoint, when they are first prescribed their hearing aid(s).

“We are about to launch a proof-of-concept study to test our audiology text-message protocol within the NHS funded by hearing aid industry collaborator (WS Audiology). The next steps are to examine the benefits for both patients and the NHS,” said Dr Emma Broome, senior research fellow at Nottingham BRC.

Getting the most from hearing aids

Getting used to hearing aids can be tricky for people with hearing loss, especially in the early days.
‘Get the most from your hearing aids’ is a helpful toolkit developed to support people to use their hearing aids. It is hosted by RNID, the leading UK charity for people who are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus.

The toolkit has six steps that aim to boost knowledge and skills, opportunities, and motivation for successful hearing aid use. It was created by researchers and people who have hearing aids and uses Health Psychology theories to help users make lasting changes and improve their experience with hearing aids.

The toolkit was developed by:
• Defining what successful hearing aid use looks like for people who have them.
• Identifying the things that make using hearing aids difficult.
• Choosing the best strategies to help people overcome these challenges and use their hearing aids more successfully.
• Testing and improving the toolkit with feedback from users.
Individuals can return to the toolkit whenever they need to. It can also be useful for them to share the toolkit with those people they talk to regularly, so that they may also understand more about hearing loss, hearing aids, and communication.

Nottingham Hearing Bioresource feasibility study

A database of volunteer participants containing detailed information about hearing and ear health - collected over time - could accelerate research into hearing conditions by providing data that can be reused to answer multiple research questions. It would also offer ready-made groups of volunteers that can be invited to trial new treatments.

Our BRC is creating the Nottingham Hearing BioResource. Data collected from participants will include information about how they live their lives, their health, how hearing loss and other hearing conditions affect their lives, and a detailed understanding of their hearing and ear health through an extensive set of tests.

This feasibility study is a smaller scale version of the Bioresource to test how well recruitment and testing would work. Researchers will look for volunteers with or without hearing loss, tinnitus or other hearing problems to take part. Volunteering will involve two in-person appointments where hearing tests will be carried out; tests where volunteers must indicate when they hear a sound, as well as tests that happen automatically.

Volunteers will also fill in questionnaires that are specially designed to provide information about how people hear, any problems they may have and how it affects them. A small sample of hair, about the width of a matchstick, will also be taken to measure levels of a stress hormone. This appointment is repeated after three months to allow us to see any differences since the last appointment.

Finally, a remote web-based appointment three months after the second appointment will include the same questionnaires and a short, automated hearing test. The feasibility study analysis will focus on how well recruitment worked and the quality and usefulness of the data collected.