Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

Professor Fuchs did a webinar back in January on the ear, hearing, and upcoming treatments for hearing loss. He talks a bit about genetic deafness and how gene therapy can address it. He also seems pretty positive about hair cell regeneration as being a thing. I just skimmed through it, but looks really informative.

How the Ear Hears, and What We Can Do About It

 

Fuchs briefly mentioned that his colleagues are looking at hair cell regeneration via support cell transdifferentiation I think, going by what was said on the slide.

Wasn't this Audion's method and they didn't have much success with it?

 

Acousia Therapeutics (Böhringer Ingelheim)

They seem to be entering clinical trials soon.

They claim that their compound does regenerate, amplify and stop aging inner hair cells.

It‘s a company with its roots back in 1998.

Back then, the company was called Otogene.

Hearing Loss Company Acousia Therapeutics Strengthening its R&D Management Team

 

I just contacted the company per eMail and asked about the study. I live only 140 miles away from their location.

 

Cool, I live about 200 km south of Tübingen, in Switzerland. Please let me know what they answer.

Thanks.

 

Please let me know as well.

 

They did not answer.

 

Rinri Therapeutics has raised £10 million to support the development of their stem-cell therapy to restore hearing.

Rinri Therapeutics Raises £10 million from Existing Investors and UK Future Fund to Advance its Novel Stem Cell Therapy to Restore Hearing Loss

 

Great news!

 

Implantable hair cells would be amazing, with that we know we could potentially get all of our hearing back and then some. Non-somatic tinnitus can kiss its ass goodbye.

 

Is that what that is? I don't know anything about Rinri's approach...

 

Rinri is auditory nerve repair.

 

Could you explain how it works? Or how it could help us?

 

It's not likely to help you specifically unless you have auditory neuropathy (usually genetic or immune, things like GBS). At least that's what they had been working on for years but...

I read the press release just now and it says "cytoarchitecture". I'm not sure what structures that refers to. Mostly the support cells provide that... I think?

 

Well that's a bummer.

 

It could help a lot of people though...

 

I thought they were also working on implanting transdifferentiated hair cells as well?

 

If they are, that is new/news to me.

 

New paper out co-authored by Liberman investigating the histopathology of both AHRL and NIHL. Is anybody here able to access the full paper?

Primary Neural Degeneration in Noise-Exposed Human Cochleas: Correlations with Outer Hair Cell Loss and Word-Discrimination Scores

 

Yes. It was an autopsy study. It talks about the importance of knowing what’s going on because a lot of regenerative therapies are entering clinical trials. Damage to striatum doesn’t occur until around age 75 in noise-induced hearing loss and presbycusis.Before age 75 striatum is usually still good.

 

Will these treatments help SSHL caused by a virus?

 

Very interesting and informative. At the end of the video at 40:47 there's someone (Elen) asking about tinnitus: ”Why do hard of hearing have ringing in their ears”?

and the answer is:

”Wow, that's a toughie. So, tinnitus is ringing in the ears. It's a common consequence of hearing-loss for many, many people. For some it is really morbid, it can produce quite sever depression, social avoidance, a variety of other sorts of problems. So tinnitus has been a really quite intractable problem for a long time. And, there have been sound therapy strategies to try to decondition the ear and things of that sort. I think these are of limited utility. I'm hoping that in the long-term strategies like we've been exploring with enhancing the strength of efferent feedback might, may actually have application to pathologies like tinnitus and hyperacusis, but that's a little ways off for now. We're still trying to make sure that it works on the experimental level.

Hopeful, but still a bit discouraging that is seems there's quite a way to go.

Sounds like what I've been thinking many times since I got my new high-pitched tinnitus about one and a half months ago; why did I manage to get this now? If it would have happened 10-20 years from now there might (or even should?) be a medical cure available.

Here's to hoping it goes way faster.

But maybe other researchers feel they have come further?

 

The above quote was posted 8 years ago and we still have nothing. What garbage tinnitus is.

 

I'm afraid 8 years isn't much when it comes to this kind of research, but I agree tinnitus (depending on its severity) is one of the most stinking bags of garbage one can endure as a human.

My latest one sometimes wants me to remove the left inner ear from my head and smash it with a hammer out of frustration. Shut up! You are torturing a mind here, don't you understand?!

I know – that won't help and I can't communicate with my inner ear.

 

Hopefully we’re only 5-10 years away.

 

A Combination of Genes to Enhance Hair Cell Regeneration in the Adult Mammalian Cochlea

Good article. I know previously they just concentrated on ATOH1, but it looks like a combination of genes yields better results.

 

There seems to be a big focus on gene research with hearing. Hough Ear Institute, Sound Pharmaceuticals and others all actually are focused on genes through either deleting or triggering them to treat.

 

From reading the article it seems like they are still missing pieces to the puzzle. I remember when Novartis and GenVec tried just Atoh1. It didn't work as anticipated. Hopefully if they can find the right combination, this could be a good therapy.

 

It will be interesting. If information about the Sound Pharmaceuticals' (and others') approach is right, then the theory behind gene deletion could work to deliver outcomes.

 

If they raised that much money, do you think that it means that investors think they have a high chance of finding a cure for hearing loss?