Director of the Hearing Institute since 2022 and director of the IHU reConnect since April 2024, Anne-Lise Giraud gives us her vision of this new university hospital institute in this interview.
What are your ambitions for reConnect?
By bringing together all the key players in hearing health - researchers, doctors, speech therapists, hearing aid specialists, patient associations and industrials in the hearing sector, from pharma to medtech to the sound industry – our ambition is to accelerate the transition from compensatory medicine focused on hearing aids to regenerative medicine.
We also want to play a major role in shaping European health politics and in making an attractive hub for the best scientists and clinicians in the field of hearing on an international scale.
What was the starting point to create reConnect? What needs does it meet?
Hearing disorders are a major global burden and are increasing in our industrialized societies. Three factors contribute to this:
Overexposure to noise, loud music and artificial sounds (such as compressed sounds),
Genetical mutations due to having children later,
We live longer so sensory aging is becoming increasingly marked.
According to the WHO, by 2050, 900 million of people will have an incapacitating hearing impairment.
This figure is a warning signal that reinforces our determination to accelerate our research to prevent and treat hearing disorders, but also diseases like Alzheimer's where hearing can serve as a lever for treatment.
This new university hospital institute, the only one of its kind in Europe, is part of the France 2030 program. It will accelerate progress in the hearing cause and encourage the emergence of start-ups in the fields of hearing and language.
What are the next steps after the launch of reConnect in November 2024?
The fundamental discoveries made over the past 20 years in the fields of genetics and neuroscience will open the way to the creation of innovative clinical approaches.
Our projects are divided into workpackages related to cardinal hearing disorders and oral communication from the ear to the brain. Work has already begun.
Fundamental research is mainly carried out at the Hearing Institute, in close collaboration with clinical research and the development of new therapies at the Lariboisière Hospital, and our partners sites at La Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital and the Necker-Enfants malades Hospital. A new building will be erected on the Lariboisière site in the upcoming years to house clinical research as well as new technological, clinical and experimental platforms, and to accomodate patients, associations and specialized companies.
reConnect IHU in 3 words?
To define the IHU, I would say: transformation, creativity, and innovation.
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