Let's hear it for Mickey

Stanford School of Medicine

Researchers have developed a technique to mass produce mouse hair cells, the sensory cells for hearing found in the inner ear. They were able to create these functional inner-ear hair cells from a combination of mouse embryonic stem cells and other reprogrammed mouse cells known as fibroblasts.

This work means millions of hair cells could be generated for study using far fewer mice. The increased availability of these cells could also accelerate research into treatments and cures for deafness and balance disorders.