Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

I’m not sure how to take this press release. On one hand it’s great news that Frequency is garnering additional funding for their PCA technology, but on the other hand, the article states: “Research Award will support translational preclinical and early-stage clinical research to address hearing dysfunction resulting from military service-related injuries”.

FX-322 is well past the preclinical and early-stage clinical research phase, which leads me to speculate whether or not there is some underlying biological shortcoming to this drug that requires further investigation, or is this a broader play for other vestibular disorders? The whole press release eludes to hearing loss specifically, so I’m kinda confused at what this funding aims to accomplish specifically.

Either way, I’m keeping the glass half full. Any funding and attention to these maladies is a win.

 

I think they will still face some challenges in getting the regenerated cells aligned in the right position in order to transfer sounds correctly to the brain.

They’ll need all the money they can get to sort that out... so good!

 

The way I read that statement is that the military wants the money to concentrate on research for noise induced hearing loss vs genetic hearing loss. It doesnt change anything. Many military personell though end up with hearing loss and as they get older end up losing most of their hearing. Since frequency has said their method may not work on severe to profound hearing loss, this could possibly open it up for those folks as well. New methods are being discovered so the money could be used to find a way to address those people as well.

 

FX-322 is for noise induced hearing. This has been their target population this entire time. This is exactly what their initial research focused on in the development of FX-322. They were never after genetic hearing loss.

 

The way they phrase could also be to protect the shareholders. This fund is clearly ment for research and not development of any drugs. Those are entangled of course but formulation could make clear that it entitles US government to nothing.
But that is me speculating.

 

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...-Department-Defense-Awards-2M-Grant-Frequency

This is fresh - FX awarded $2 million from US Department of Defense today.

 

they invest in the health of their soldiers the thousandth part of what they spend every day ... it seems a joke ...

 

Congratulations to Frequency, this is exciting news.

 

This is my fear as well. The good news is though that I remember they were first testing their drug cocktail on mice hair cells, monkey hair cells and an ex-planted cochlea, I remember them stating that when they tested the hair cells in a petri dish, they had to apply the drug in 2 stages. In the full ex-planted cochlea they only needed the first stage of application. From there, the hair cells grew in place. This makes me a little more confident that the cells respond correctly based on their location in the cochlea.

 

This is just pocket change, there will be more of these handouts, once the rat race gets going and they have an idea of who is closest to success, there will a sudden HUGE cash investment from Uncle Sam, I would estimate it will be proportionate to what the annual payout for welfare is for soldiers with hearing disabilities returning from the east, I have met many of them.

 

I remember a while back mentioning that the Government should get involved with this - they are finally getting involved!

2M almost seems like nothing now but if Frequency Therapeutics shows results, you bet your boots they will get more.

What an exciting time.

 

I know that the subject was already discussed earlier but is there any scientific data showing that supportive cells are for sure destroyed in case of profound hearing loss (except for the leviathan post on reddit)?

 

Should they not start recruiting soon?
The I/II -trial was supposed to start early fall?
Waiting for it every day

 

Me too,waiting for 2 trial and praying they manage to regenerate cells

 

They already can regenerate hair cells, I think the problem is navigating the cochlea. The gel that delivers FX-322 probably travels to quick and rest in the inner cochlea only regenerating low frequency hearing.

 

Where do you find and read that stuff because I can't find it. Please send me a link.

 

Maybe this is a far too simple solution, but from my years of experience in a kitchen. Thicken up a sauce and it’s way less runny and sticks better to what you are coating. So, maybe they need to make the gel thicken so it won’t travel so quick to the rest of the cochlea and this allows it to be longer in the place you need it to be?

 

@Lou38 I asked your question too as I have severe to profound hearing loss at around 5khz and up. From what I understand and of course I might be wrong, its too early to answer your and my question. I follow this thread because the approach is promising and thats it.

Many people think they have Tinnitus because they had hearing loss in a frequency we cant measure, so they also dont know if they have maybe severe/profound hearing loss at that area. I think we also dont know what exactly you will hear when you regrow hair cells with supportive cells.

I know its hard but the only thing we can do right now is wait and hope - everything else is just speculation in my opinion.

 

Is there a lot of inward current in the cochlea fluid, would you say?
Would shaking your head counter act this?
What kind of jelly do you like?

 

It was posted here earlier. It was an animal model that recovered best in low frequencies, and I will try to find it.

I was only speculating about the gel traveling the cochlea to fast.

 

The interesting thing about Frequency is that they did not start out as a hearing loss company. They started out experimenting the possibilities of activating the bodies dormant progenitor cells to a state of activity like ones naturally found in the mammalian intestines and realized it the research strongly suggested it was possible to repair a damaged cochlea using progenitor cell activation. (PCA)

Langer Karp Breakthrough Hearing

That's why I'm excited about F-tx they did not force a possible medical miracle to happen, the research took them there.

 

https://www.genengnews.com/gen-arti...at-hearing-loss/6331?q=Frequency Therapeutics

New article, Langer provides new insight that FX-322 might take more than 1 injection to obtain desired results.

 

me leaving the room to inject myself a bit of molecules in the ears again

 

More than one injection is totally fine with me as long as it's effective and safe. I'm really rooting for these guys.

 

I remember when I had my intratympanic injection with cortison that I had to stay still for like 30min and not to swallow to allow the cortison to reach the inner ear. The doctor said the less I swallow the better. Seems like the same procedure...also did that for 3 times in a period of 3 weeks. The injection is no problem in my opinion instead of not swallowing over 30-45min. I also think thats why they talk a lot about the dose because the patients will swallow of course and in that short period of time how high should the dose be that needs to be injected that enough can reach the inner ear to get things going.

 

Just reading this has made me shallow.

 

You meant to write "swallow", right?

 

I’m posting these images because no one has done so yet, but I took screenshots of these slides from a lecture Jeff Karp gave on his research back in March. The video associated with these slides was posted earlier.

If you examine these slides closely, there’s some interesting information you can derive from here. In the first slide above, the patient’s audiogram illustrates an individual who has moderate-severe hearing loss across the standard tested frequency spectrum. If you look at the picture next to the graph in this same slide, you can see that this same individual still has the necessary supporting cells present in order for this treatment to work. This to me is good news, it implies that you can have slightly worse hearing loss than moderate losses and still be able to benefit from this procedure. This slide also reveals that this individual still has normal nerve function, which is also an important revelation.

The second image above is also very interesting. The graph here shows that FX-322 was able reach the apex of the cochlea with therapeutic levels in their model. For those of you that aren’t aware, the apex of the cochlea is the farthest place to reach for the drug, and the apex is associated with your 500hz frequencies (lowest). This inversely means that the higher frequencies are easier to reach in regard to drug exposure and therapeutic impact.

 

I read a lot about noise induced hearing loss and progenitor cells. Also the tests use animals that have hearing loss from noise.

Is their any information about hearing loss from problems with blood circulations like stress/virus/neck vessels etc? My fear is that problems with blood circuations could easier kill progenitor cells. Is their any information about differences in the cochlea concerning the progenitor cells between different types of root causes?

I am not really informed about noise induced hearing loss and how actually hair cells die from it. I know that goes into detail, but maybe I was missing something.

 

Meniere's patients are going to satisfied with that result!