Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

Yes you're right I was thinking of auditory neurons.

 

Yes you are correct. I was thinking about the typical notch (3-4 kHz) in audiograms that is so recognisable for NIHL.
I think what also can happen is that people think they have excellent word discrimination in noisy surroundings, but do not realise it used to be much better. (I am not saying this is the case in your situation, but just in general).
This worsening of hearing can go so slow you will not notice for a long time.
Also I think you do not need the high frequencies for good word discrimination. I regard high frequencies being frequencies above 8 kHz.
This is likely why the standard test is up to 8 kHz.

 

I would be so happy to have those frequencies back and enjoy the music again.
Around 6000 hz I notice a reduction and slight distortion in my right ear that cuts off to a very low volume around 11,000 hz. It ruins some of my favorite music, it distorts birds chirping and crickets at night.

The ideal goal for us music lovers is to have 0 to 15,000 Hz not just the human voice range.

 

I d say its 16khz cuz thats where typical mp3 compression cuts off, but i d be happy with even 10k.

 

Human hearing range is 20 Hz - 20 kHz. It seems to me the ideal is to have as high an upper limit as possible, but not too high that dog whistles and other devices are going to start bothering you. Maybe 22 kHz is a good spot.

 

Than a lot of digital sound systems need revising

 

I have a feeling this is going off topic, but I'm curious as to why?

 

I would say it has gone off topic. Maybe start a new thread to talk about this stuff?

 

On topic, there is something that I have been thinking about for a while after watching the "hidden hearing loss" clip.
Liberman explains there is still the issue of getting the medicine to reach not just the first part of the cochlea (high frequencies). Just like Frequencie Therapeutics they use the round window to get the medicine in the cochlea (permeation). Will not FT have to deal with the same problem?

 

I think the answer to this could be nano technology, or nano medicine. For years, nano particles has been tested and developed within the research field of a variety medicine. I found an article dating back to 2011 from my country talking about how they would use shrimps(?) in developing nano medicine to reach the inner ear.

Link to the article; https://geminiresearchnews.com/2011/06/gene-therapy-for-ears/

In short, it says that scientists have been using shrimp shells to develop nano particles in order to deliver medicine into the inner ear. From the shrimp shells they are able to make chitosan which in turn makes up the nano particles. These particles have shown to be very good candidates to carry i.e. gene medicine. In this specific trial, they used fluorescent particles that started to emit light once they reached the desired cells, to confirm the delivery of the "drug".

The future is now!

 

Yeah I agree. I wish there was a one-click way to "Take this message to start another thread" in the UI, perhaps right next to the "Bookmark" and "Quote" buttons.

I realize that this suggestion is off topic too...

 

Nano technology

Delivery of small molecular drugs like steroid or antioxidant, is likely to be commercialized within 10 years.
However, it is difficult to predict the timing of delivery of genes or a growth factor. It may take decades

 

Is this your personal subjective opinion, or are you trying to quote a researcher from the company?
If so, then this is one of the most sad news in the world.

I wrote to the company in the summer, and they answered that they are still in many years from the real release of treatment to the market.

But I believe and hope for breakthroughs ahead of the plan, which are always in science.
Of course, if more finances were allocated, all this would move faster.

We all dream in dreams and in reality about the day when we can hear the whole pure range without any interference and tinnitus. May it be so!

I still have not dealt with some issues, and Frequency Therapeutics have become very closed lately and do not respond to letters / Why in the annotation is indicated only noise-induced hearing loss.

 

Hmmm some are saying in the next 5 years best case scenario

 

Directly from Dong-Kee Kim


Dear Larsen,

Thank you for your interest in my paper.
I think the delivery of small molecular drugs like steroid or antioxidant, is likely to be commercialized within 10 years.
However, it is difficult to predict the timing of delivery of genes or a growth factor. It may take decades

Sincerely
Dong-Kee Kim

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2017/3098230/

 

So is FT a delivery of molecular drugs that "Is likely" in 10 years, or is it delivery of a growth factor that "may take decades"?

 

I imagine Frequency would know how long it took to regrow the hair cells on the animal testing.

 

Birds and infant mice regenerate in 4-5 days. I've not seen where frequency gives a time frame for it's treatment.

 

I thought the first tests were succesful, did they (are they able to) measure how far the medicine travel in the cochlea?

 

We don't have the detailed result of the trial yet, just a statement from frequency tx saying that it has been successful

 

F TX don´t need no nano-particles. Diffusion of their compound, through the round window, into the cochlea fluids is their game. And they have just proven this to be effective.
No need to complicate things here!

 

Has Frequency-tx regrown hair cells in living mice/primates or just tissue?

 

Wow, with the number of new posts, I figured there was some new news....

I think this is likely the case with any therapy that relies on delivery of a drug to the inner ear. Not sure if it is worse for gene therapy vs. Frequency's small molecules.

I don't see this as relevant to the discussion, and I think 'decades' is way to long for gene therapy in particular (though I would note that he does say 'it may...")

That was not part of the trial. They were measuring the concentration in the fluid in the inner ear. The presumption (hope?) is that it will 'bathe' the entire inner ear. My guess is the fact that they are calling it a 'small molecule' means there is a higher likelihood of this than in say gene therapy.

We've seen nothing at all in living mice/monkeys/humans. There is information in the Mclean et al paper on how long treatments took in their experiments. It was days to a couple of weeks and is obviously not practical in humans. As noted below, I have summarized this earlier in this thread.

Agreed. Assuming they followed the protocol, then we won't know anything about what is and isn't reached in the cochlea. The only way to know would be to dissect, and that would not be a good thing for the participants!

I've written at length about this elsewhere in this thread - I think May 2017 or so - so I am not going to repeat myself here at any length. In the published paper, nothing has been regrown in living mice/primates. Presumably they have done this by now, and I am hoping this will be in the next paper. (If they haven't done it yet, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that a trial would begin without some evidence of that.)

 

I thought they said they were successful in restoring hearing in mice? Doesn’t this indicate some level of regeneration? Of course, we don’t know know how “good” the results were. I’ve been reading some of the posts here and every discussion comes back to this. We just don’t have measurable data yet. I remain hopeful because it seems like they are moving forward, so results should be good.

 

Wasn't frequency Therapeutics the company that can create hearing cells in the lab and test their own concoctions on it. I think they grew like 2,000 cells from just one test.

What you have to ask is what do they defined by success. They obviously aren't going to release anything until investors are informed and come up with a plan.

 

Not 2,000, but 2,000 fold.

http://www.frequencytx.com/news-events/pr-02-21-2017.php

 

Well that's even better. I was going on memory. So just hang in there people! Just enjoy life until something comes along, we have bright people working on this monster.

 

I'd be happy with 2,000 additional hearing cells, especially in my T frequency range.

 

It’s frustrating they haven’t clarified what that means. 2000 fold can indicate anywhere from 2000 to full restoration. To somebody with severe hearing loss, the difference can be drastic. Has anybody found any information about a previously established procedure that was able to grow hair cells? Following their statement, if only 5 hair cells were grown, then 2000 fold would result in 10,000. This would be amazing for all patients across the spectrum.

 

Frustrating is you all flooding the thread asking the same questions over and over again that have been answered dozens of times. Not to mention when you go completely off-topic.