VENAIL Frédéric

Laboratory research grant - 2017

Scientific prizes - 2020

2017 Research grant

Project status: active

Optimizing cochlear implants by developing an innovative new real-time imaging tool.

Prof. Frédéric Venail, an ENT surgeon at Montpellier teaching hospital, and Prof. Philippe Poignet, research director at the Laboratory of Computer Science, Robotics and Microelectronics of Montpellier, will develop an innovative new real-time imaging tool to improve cochlear implantation. This tool will be used to guide the insertion of the implant’s electrode array by merging the images captured in real time by ultrasound and scanner. This new technology will benefit not only potential candidates for cochlear implants but also lead the way to therapeutic interventions such as the administration of drugs or gene therapy in the inner ear, which are difficult to achieve with current tools.

2020 Early Career Scientific Prize

Project status: closed

Frédéric Venail has been awarded the 2020 Early Career Scientific Prize for Clinical Research in recognition of his groundbreaking work to prevent fibrosis after a cochlear implant, a side effect that compromises patients’ residual hearing.

Professor Frédéric Venail is an Otorhinolaryngology Surgeon and Head of the Otology and Neurotology medical team at the Gui de Chauliac Hospital Center.

Positioned at the interface between neuroscience and medicine, Professor Venail’s research aims to improve care for people with hearing loss.

CAREER

Graduating in medicine with a specialization in ENT in 2006, Frédéric Venail started a doctorate in science at the University of Montpellier on the regeneration of hair cells in the cochlea (part of the inner ear), which he completed in 2008. In 2009, he pursued his postdoctoral research at the laboratory of Richard Smith at the Iowa Institute of Human Genetics in the United States. In 2007, he was appointed Teaching Hospital Assistant in Montpellier and in 2016 became a Teaching Hospital Faculty Member.

RESEARCH

Normally, the cochlear, the part of the inner ear involved in hearing, transforms sound vibrations into electrical signals and transmits them to the acoustic nerve. These signals are carried to the brain, which processes the sound data.

For patients with severe hearing loss, an electronic device called a cochlear implant may be proposed. Its external processor captures sound and transmits it to an internal component, which is surgically implanted into the cochlear, with electrodes to stimulate the acoustic nerve.

For more than 10 years, Frédéric Venail has been researching the mechanisms of cochlear fibrosis, a much-feared side effect of cochlear implants, since it compromises patients’ residual hearing and undermines implant effectiveness.

Cochlear fibrosis, which may appear after an inner-ear implant, results from abnormal tissue scarring. Using rodent models reproducing this process, Professor Venail’s team has pinpointed the mechanisms of chronic inflammation leading to fibrosis. The scientists have highlighted the molecular factors leading to the proliferation of cells underlying the fibrotic scarring. Finally, they have demonstrated the efficacy of antiproliferative and anti-inflammatory molecules such as dexamethasone in stopping this process in animals.

If these results are confirmed in humans, Professor Venail’s work could considerably increase the benefits of cochlear implants.

 

Professor Frédéric Venail
ENT surgeon
Head of the medical team Otology & Neurotology
ENT Department, CHU Gui de Chauliac, Montpellier, France
 

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