IHU reConnect
The Hearing Institute partners with APHP, Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Fondation pour l’Audition and Institut Pasteur to create an IHU project (Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire).
The IHU, named reConnect, aims to better detect and manage hearing and speech disorders.
In this multidisciplinary structure, research and innovation will serve clinical practice and academic training. Its goal will be to address the medical, societal, and educational needs raised by hearing disorders.
Hearing, a major public health issue
Hearing loss and hearing impairments are a major global burden. In industrialized societies, we are living longer, having children later, leading to an increase in neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases of genetic origin, and our environments include new sources of noise pollution (such as compressed sounds). These three factors contribute to the increasing number of people suffering from hearing loss and hearing disorders.
Today, the tools and medical management of these disorders do not perfectly meet the growing and diversified needs. While we can compensate for some hearing deficits, we still do not know how to cure them, even though they are one of the main causes of social and professional isolation.
The contribution of the IHU reConnect
The IHU reConnect will bring together, for the first time, all stakeholders in hearing health: patient associations, researchers, ENT clinicians, neurologists, geriatricians, neurosurgeons from the Hearing Institute and Lariboisière Hospital, as well as our partners from Necker and Pitié-Salpêtrière hospitals, healthcare professionals and industrial players in the hearing sector. It will also intensify innovation and entrepreneurship around this major public health issue.
This IHU is the first European institute dedicated to hearing and the brain, with the ambitious goal of transitioning in the next decade from compensatory medicine to restorative medicine, thanks to fundamental discoveries made in the last twenty years in genetics and neurophysiology. It will pave the way for the creation of new clinical applications with major societal and academic impacts.
Supported by its founding members, its scientific and operational organization will make reConnect a leading European institute, playing a major role in the development of European health policies and attracting the best scientists and clinicians from around the world.
This future center of excellence was submitted for funding to the call for projects for the new IHU, and the response to its creation was given on May 16, 2023.
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What is an IHU?
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"IHUs" (Hospital-University Institutes) are centers of scientific and medical excellence created to invent the medicine of tomorrow, future treatments, and new practices. They are established following a call for projects launched by the French government. Each IHU brings together teams of researchers, caregivers, and companies around a unique clinical theme.
IHUs are based on 4 pillars:
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Research
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Care
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Training
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Industrial valorization
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Role of IHUs
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The objective is to promote the development of translational research that directly benefits patients. Invent the medicine of tomorrow and improve the care pathway.