'Cure' for Deafness Discovered by Scientists After Deaf Mice Have Hearing Restored

Scientists carried healthy DNA into the ears of profoundly deaf rodents using a harmless virus

http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/cure-deafness-discovered-scientists-after-9768342

 

It is the most efficient news I have ever seen. But what I understood is this is working for genetic hearing loss. Is it true and not working with other types of hearing loss ?

 

Is this not the same as they did a couple of years ago? Or is it different because of the delivery method?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38881369

 

The pictures look impressive (BBC article)

 

"The technology may be better suited to treating more progressive forms of hearing loss."

 

While this sounds optimistic, I have seen more of such articles on The Mirror dating back years. It's written in a "clickbaity" kind of way. What I'm missing is any credible source when opening the article. The few links in the article seem to redirect to sources within the site of The Mirror itself.

Are there any scientific articles about this new development? No doubt those articles are written in a more nuanced manner.

Can you please link to this specific article?

 

See one post above the post you quoted.

 

I posted scientific link of this in inner ear regeneration thread

 

This is for a particular type of genetic hearing loss.

I agree about the sensationalized headlines and the posts that contain links to such articles without tracking down and linking to the actual papers. Here is the paper: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3801.html

What is very impressive about this is that there is essentially complete recovery. -25 dB threshold rather than deafness - along with vestibular recovery. This is clearly important and much better than almost any other paper that I can recall.

The downside is that it is for a specific type of a specific genetic cause of deafness and that the window of intervention appears to be short. Assuming prenatal testing were available, then it seems like this could work though I am not sure how you recruit for a clinical trial.

What has been missed in this thread and in the newspaper articles is mention of the second paper that lays out the methodology. (http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nbt.3781.pdf) This has the potential to be much more broadly applicable and could increase the effectiveness of other treatments.

What is clear is that research on genetic causes of hearing loss is building momentum.

 

It seems I have some reading to do tonight. I am excited. Thanks @Aaron123.

Some additional (and related) reading:
http://www.genengnews.com/print/43979
https://www.researchgate.net/blog/p...ing-and-balance-in-mice-with-genetic-disorder
http://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/molecular-therapy/pdf/S1525-0016(16)45434-1.pdf
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170206111804.htm

 

Totally glanced over that, thanks.

 

The window of opportunity seems quite short with this treatment, hope they can tweak it and get it to work with hearing loss/regeneration:

There are also questions about the "window of opportunity". While the therapy worked in mice treated at birth, it failed when given just 10 days later.

 

Why does things like this only work within like 2-10 days :/?

 

Probably because at birth, there are growth factors present but these are no longer present a few days after birth. This is what some of the companies who are doing hair cell regeneration are working on. There are some videos and data on this on the megathread on hair cell regeneration. See https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/inner-ear-hair-cell-regeneration-—-maybe-we-can-know-more.3131/

 

A short video by one of the senior authors of the Usher paper: https://ushersyndromecoalition.host....aspx?id=c799cbe0-db25-494d-9cf8-cf130ddf0fa5

 

I saw another lecture about this, and it has to do with the age of the mice. It seems to work in younger mice, but as the mice age the cells behave differently and can't generate new ear cells for some reason. That's what they still need to overcome.

 

I will be more happy when they find and fund cures for acquired hearing loss and T, the vast majority of cases.

This is great and important too for understanding the inner ear better, however, so I am glad to see this new.

 

absolutely incredible if what I glossed over here is real, then it's the most profound thing I've ever read!

 

A non-sarcastic comment from Ian Mac.....this study must be legit. Haha.

Im pretty excited about what the future holds in regards to clinical trials. Soon it will be as easy to fix hearing as laser eye surgery. ;-)

 

Sounds excited, but many similar stories have failed to produce anything useful. Also this is just for hearing loss, it doesn't even mention tinnitus.

People always assume a cure will fix both, but there's no reason why it has too. Plenty of evidence suggests tinnitus can exist in the brain and the auditory nerve as well.

I also wonder if growing new hair cells will repair the damaged ones, or if the damage ones will remain causing phantom noises forever.

 

No one can tell if it will but we can hope it will because this is our biggest chance for a cure right now

But if it does not help with T they can start searching for new places to fix T because then we can almost say for sure its maybe not a ear problem or it something else in our ears

 

There has never been so many extremely reputable universities and research facilities so sure there will be a treatment one day.

Sure 10 years ago there was a theory or two, now there's actually competition between companies!

 

Yeah like 30 years ago it was just and idea and look at us now, now it's a...um... a concept yes we truely are on the brink of something dare I say magical and potentially orgasmic!

 

Regarding this paper, ANC80 is a useful tool to offload DNA into cochlear hair cells of mice. They use a mouse model where knockin of a single gene causes a powerful hearing and balance phenotype. They just replace the defective gene in the knockin mouse with the correct gene, packed onto their ANC80 vector. It is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree but, hey, it's nice to come up with something tangible. The reason why it only works at very early stages of postnatal development (as one of you wisely guessed) is that other signaling systems in the hair cells start to go off the rails without activity and their single gene replacement therapy cannot rescue widespread dysfunction. It would be phenomenal to have treatments for Usher Syndrome but it's a MUCH easier nut to crack than chronic acquired tinnitus.