Deaf People Get Gene Tweak to Restore Natural Hearing

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229662.400#.U1jgPvldWg8

Wanted to share this with you.

 

Thanks, the article does sound interesting:

Deaf people get gene tweak to restore natural hearing
People who have lost their hearing will be injected with a harmless virus carrying a gene that should trigger the regrowth of their ears’ sensory receptors

Also here's the article and comments on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/23uirt/harmless_virus_containing_gene_to_be_injected/

 

It will be very interesting to see how this pans out. KU's Otolaryngology clinic is a pretty cutting edge place it seems. They have been taking part in a lot of trials, including AM-101. I always liked that area of Kansas City, as it is pretty close to the Power and Light District... which is not a great place for us tinnitus sufferers but it was a damn fun time anyway!

 

Seriously, this is a long time coming... like any part of our body our ears should have a chance to regen.

 

Well this looks very interesting ! Let's hope everything goes as planned

 

Good start in the right direction

 

No way I want something unexpected and crazy to happen like they get superhearing or some shit.

 

I already 'hear' more than I'm supposed to, so I'd just prefer my normal hearing back, thanks!

 

Staecker estimates that the approach could help 1 to 2 per cent of all people with hearing loss...

Why so little?

 

Deaf people? I hope this treatment is done to people with noise induced hearing loss because we know that their they suffer from damaged hair cells. Deafness is so broad.

I'm confident that they must be targeting people who suffer from actual noise trauma because blindness often doesn't start at the eye but rather the brain, much like deafness.

That's what I was thinking. This is kind of the golden ticket, here.

 

There are fears that the regenerated hair cells may not react like natural hair cells, which could compromise good hearing. That's why they are starting with the profoundly deaf. There's also mention that they prefer people who went deaf due to ototoxicity, which I would guess is significant only because of the way they induced deafness in the lab animals. Seems kinda rough for the patients, though. They may get some weird noises that are nothing like the hearing they remember.

 

As long as it's not constant ringing some sound is probably better than no sound.

 

Hi,
this experiment is mainly a proof of concept.
Genvec, the biotec company behind this trial will get some milestone payments from pharma multi
Novartis if they can reach their goals, hair cell regeneration and an improvement of 10dB. (the press says 20dB)
It's an important trial. If it works, I am sure they will invest more to optimize the outcome and therapy.
They look for severe hearing impaired people, because they aren't sure what will happen
if new hair cell grow and mix up with the residual hair cells. So there are many uncertain things,
all most everything.
I hope there won't be any harm to the patients due to the novel kind of therapy.
I also hope there won't any problems which would shed a bad light on
gene-therapy in general.

But if the results would result positive, this field of research would be shifted very much.


Greets Tom

 

If this is successful and 10 % ( 20%) whichever is achieved do you think they will then go for more percentage such as 50 % hearing back? Or is this drug they have not capable or they would
Have to come up with another to do that.

 

Hi Grace,

this is all uncertain. It's also uncertain, if regeneration will take effect on all frequencies. Probably it's just high, or low frequency. It's also uncertain, if there is increase by repeating... maybe the scientists know more.
If it works in principle, I am sure they have to tewak many many parameters until they get
a causal and effective treatment torwards regain a relatively normal, natural hearing.
Probably, they can one day repair hearing in some selective way.

It's exciting!

Greets Tom

 

IN 2 MONTHS TIME!!!!Thats amazing that they are starting so soon I was expecting to be like 40 when they even began testing this method.We always say in the future they will be able to cure this and that but what we dont realise is that the future has arrived.Amazing stuff lets just hope it works....without the U.S.A or the U.K its preety fair to say the world would be a shittier place.

 

This is very exciting news indeed. This treatment is actually geared towards people who have NIHL, SSHL, or Ototoxicity. It's stated that they are testing on people who are profoundly deaf, and will not be able to test on people who were born deaf as they may not have the structures in the ear to support the growth unfortunately. Just to clear things up a little.

 

Gottcha!!! Well its one step at a time then

 

Exciting stuff. I can't wait to hear the results!

 

Holy sh*t, this is a pretty huge step forward! Can't wait to see how things pan out from here.

 

it's incredible how this news has virtually nothing to do with tinnitus, yet look at the comments on reddit, they are ALL talking about it. This is really symptomatic of the commonness of this condition.

 

Hi,
yes it's correctly that this experiment hasn't to do either with restoring hearing to normal nor erasing tinnitus.
But if they can get the most out of this research, results might improve. And probably if we can correct hearing loss one day, there might be a reduction of Tinnitus too... at least, we really don't know...
This is basic work, proof of principle and highly experimental.

Greets Tom

 

Deafness is broad. This news is exciting and I have every hope something positive comes out of it and other work like it by other researchers and Scientists.

 

Was just thinking do you remember when you were younger and someone mentioned the word scientist and you were like pfffsshh NERDS!!Now when someone mentions scientists it takes a whole new meaning.Its research and work like this that makes them so invaluable in todays world.Just hope everything goes to plan....

 

I know, I kept hearing that they were planning on curing hearing loss in 10 years... so I figured that this was at least a few years away before we got to this point. I am blown away that they are already at human trials. And if it is successful, then like most things, they will continue to perfect the technique and research and it will just continue to improve.

 

I mean, step 1 is to regenerate the ear if it's structurally in place, like it is for all of us. It's amazing we're doing this now, and I expect the techniques to mature rapidly (they are maturing rapidly because of pressure on the medical community to produce results)

Step 2 is to regenerate a new cochlea entirely for people with severe head trauma/damage and implant it back in. That's gonna be fucking crazy too!

 

Nothing for Tinnitus???

 

Yes, just hope, step 1 doesn't harm people in trial, this would be a major backdraw.
If there would be just a little enhancement would be a big advance.
In general, it's very interesting to see how researchers could trigger hair cell regeneration in some
very different ways. For such a complex process, it's surprising they have different approaches.
https://hearinglosscure.stanford.edu/research/

Stem Cell Replacement would be the best, but it's also the most complex of the very complex
approaches.

 

The prevailing theory is that tinnitus is the result of hearing loss in most cases; i.e. hearing loss is the underlying cause for tinnitus. So if the underlying cause is fixed, then tinnitus will be cured. So that's why we're excited.

 

To back this claim up. There was a study done, showing that pretty much everyone has some form of Tinnitus, if put into a completely soundproof room. Something like 200 people were put into a soundproof room and were told to press a button if they heard a sound. 96% of these people pressed the button lol. Now think about it. If anyone loses hearing at any frequency and can hear tinnitus in a completely silent room, than it's most likely that hearing loss will make that sound more audible/ noticeable.