On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh is joined by Dr. Lawrence Lustig, otolaryngologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia. Dr. Lustig has spent decades working to advance various interventions to treat genetic hearing loss and after years of research his team was the first to show that gene therapies could be effective at reversing genetic hearing loss in mouse models and eventually, humans. In April 2026, the FDA approved the first ever gene therapy for a rare form of genetic otoferlin deafness based on the work pushed forward by Dr. Lustig. Dr. Lustig shares how he and his team brought this approach to treating genetic deafness from mouse models, to humans, to FDA approval in record time, and why this new therapy will have a profound effect on treatments for hearing loss in the years to come.