Therapeutic manipulations of the mammalian cochlea, including cochlear gene transfer,
have been predominantly studied using the guinea pig as the experimental model. With the
significant developments in mouse genomics and the availability of mutant strains of mice
with well-characterized hearing loss, the mouse justifiably will be the preferred animal model
for therapeutic manipulations. However, the potential advantages of the mouse model have
not been fully realized due to the surgical difficulty of accessing its small cochlea. This study …