Verena Scheper leads the lab “Pharmacology of the Inner Ear” at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Hannover Medical School, Germany. Her research focus is on optimizing the hearing outcome of patients. The treatment strategies are pharmacologically based and focus either on hearing preservation before trauma insult will damage the hearing or on therapeutic approaches in already-traumatized ears. Next to identification of appropriate drugs and relevant concentrations she develops and tests drug delivery strategies, which range from established methods such as osmotic pump based local delivery to advanced cell based drug delivery. She covers the research and development chain from in vitro studies and animal models to translation into the clinic.