IRF7 and deafness: A recent study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (Milon et al., 2021) integrated the results of the single-cell sequencing of various cell types in the whole cochlea and discovered that the immune response mediated by the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3/interferon regulatory factor 7 (STAT3/IRF7) pathway plays an important role in the early stages of noise-induced deafness in mice.