Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

Sorry to Dis-dissapoint you , but

"[...]the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for the Phase 1/2 clinical trial of CGF166 in patients with severe to profound hearing loss has recommended that the trial continue, [...]"

http://ir.genvec.com/press-releases...vides-update-on-hearing-loss-clinical-program

See also the last few posts in the GenVec thread:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/denver-man-gets-gene-therapy-to-restore-hearing.7312/page-11

 

https://www.actiononhearingloss.org...euZCjuWL+QTOHd5C+rz58ADtLjkbZ2Gl2h7ClOVDFKZ9I

 

I love how... everyday are more news about the subject.
its a good time to be alive

 

Hi All
I have a question but I don't know if it is silly or not. As I do not know the real cause of my tinnitus, I'm also not sure if it is related to a damage to auditory nerve or hearing cells. So will it still be safe to take a part in that treatment without knowing the certain damage?

 

"Ear in a Dish"

http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/32070439/ear-in-a-dish-to-increase-volume-in-research

 

Hi Poyraz, can you explain more of this treatment?

 

ear-in-a-dish-to-increase-volume-in-research
I really like these jumps forward.
Must be so practical to be able to experiment on ear tissue in a Petri dish.
Unfortunately I also read. quote:
"And although Trebley says “it’s a long way off,” the vision exists to use a patient’s stem cells to create missing parts of the inner ear".
There we go again. How long is a long way off?
But also should be excellent news for animals. The less animals used the better it is for these unfortunate creatures.

 

Hi Nick
I meant stem cell theraphy. I'm not taking any treatment currently.

 

I wouldn't look too much into the long way off statement. I'm pretty sure its just him guessing. I think he is just saying that by dumping a bunch of stem cells into the ear, it isnt going to get your hearing back, and pretty sure most of the researchers know this. They need to find the right process, or combination of process and chemicals and maybe ear specific stem cells to do this. Most of the ideas out there are still only getting maybe 20-50% of an animals hearing back. Once they figure out how to get to 100% is when they will succeed and I think that is still a ways off.

Either way this is good news and it should really accelerate the research being done.

 

I'm also interested to know what part of the inner ear they specifically are speaking about. Inside the cochlea, or the neurons between the brain and the cochlea?

 

Here's a video on the subject:
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/31891694/hoosier-made-ear-in-a-dish-making-waves

 

What's interesting about the "ear in a dish" story is that the story don't mention the just-published article where the IU researchers along with researchers from Harvard report that they grew apparently functional vestibular hair cells in a 3d culture. They don't talk as much about cochlear hair cells, but presumably that is on their radar. Link to article:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160524/ncomms11508/full/ncomms11508.html#ref15

Here's a press release from Boston Children's Hospital with some cool pictures. http://vector.childrenshospital.org/2016/05/inner-ear-dish/

 

I am confused.
When I look at this link: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160524/ncomms11508/full/ncomms11508.html#ref15. This was done in 2013. (Received in 2012).
When I look at this link: http://vector.childrenshospital.org/2016/05/inner-ear-dish/. I read 2016.
To me it looks like the 2016 news is something already done in 2012/2013.
Perhaps I am missing something?

 

I was perplexed by the recent news stories on the "ear in a dish" because of that earlier Nature paper. There were also other stories on it in the last couple of years. (http://news.iu.edu/releases/2015/09/Ear-in-a-dish-IU-startup-auricyte-innovation-showcase.shtml) It seems as though the news article is more about the involvement of the biotech company.

As far as the difference between the papers, from what I can tell the new paper goes into much more detail about the functional properties of the hair cells. This quote from the discussion in the 2016 paper may summarize the difference

 

@Aaron123 . Thanks.
I am fascinated by what they accomplished. It must be so much easier to study the cells in a dish. I hope it accelerates research.

 

So, would this by chance lead to a cure most likely in 10 years? I don't know why I ask anymore.....I really don't.

 

Jd! dont feel bad about asking this question, is normal, is your health, you wanna get better.
you wanna know, well hopefully less than 10 years.
there are a lot others things going on besides this study, there are more and more.

 

Here's some information about a start-up working on *non-invasive* drug delivery to the middle and inner ear using magnetics! They are able to use magnets to *push* nanoparticles into a rat inner ear, but they are doing it at a distance - 4 cm - that would work for a human. In some of the following they specifically mention usefulness for tinnitus and hearing loss. They are also looking at middle ear drug delivery without going through the ear drum. They have received NSF funding and will be exhibiting at an international biotech conference in June.

If something like this works, I wonder how it would work to get the meds in a nano form that would work with such a system. Regardless, here's some information.

Company: http://otomagnetics.net/

2014 article describing the process/challenges/timeline/etc: http://www.controlofmems.umd.edu/pu...reClinical-Magnetic-Ear-Delivery-ENTA2014.pdf

Press release: http://www.bioe.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=8035

Academic paper from 2013: http://www.controlofmems.umd.edu/pu...ct-IntoInnerEar-AtHuman-Distances-Jan2013.pdf

Web page with info about additional academic projects/publications/etc http://www.controlofmems.umd.edu/index.html

 

Jd, may I ask how bad your hearing is?

 

Worst website ever, but apparently they are researching drugs for preventing hearing loss (and maybe even treating it?):

http://www.13therapeutics.com/noise-induced-hearing-loss.html

 

I have been reading the links you guys share and these are the ones makes me keep alive. Thank you all.

But do we know if these studies will be also efficient for tinnitus? Sorry I do not have any idea about science so I need to ask this stupid question.

 

If your tinnitus is caused by hearing loss then it could work!?

 

That is what I'm afraid of. I do not have any hearing loss. I feel so hopeless.

 

yes you have some kind of hearing loss, maybe above 8Mhz, you need to make an audiogram above 8 Mhz

 

Posted yesterday:
https://www.actiononhearingloss.org...improving-therapies-to-regrow-hair-cells.aspx

 

The thing that confuses me is this,if they do indeed regrow haircells then what makes them form synapses and connections to the auditory nerve?I read that it supposedly does it itself by I'm not sure....

 

I really don't understand at all why these programs focus so much on hair cell damage. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have damaged the actual hair cells of their cochleas through cell ototoxicity......but acoustic trauma seems so faulty to me. I've bumped into many sites online talking about "temporary hearing loss" and how many people develop it after going to a concert or being at a loud event. They freely state the fact that some hair cells have been damaged because of the loud noise, which has "bent" the hair cells and some how over a period of time they will reform back to their original position. Just like how many people diagnosed with hearing loss, which I'm sure are told they have hair cell damage and who are fitted with hearing aids, still can't hear/process properly with louder noises going on around them in let's say a social situation.

Why are there researchers (ex: Prof. Charles Liberman) out there proving that acoustic trauma to the inner ear results in a massive loss of cochlear nerve fibers and no suspected damage to the sensory cells inside the cochlea? Then you have tons and tons of programs/researchers out there studying and displaying hair cell damage from an assortment of factors. If hair cells really capture all that is needed with ones actual ability to hear sound, then hearing aids should completely solve the problem? Adding more hair cells so that we pick up more frequencies is not going to allow us to "hear" more fluently. Hearing is all processed in the brain. It's the brain and the chemicals involved in its neurons/nervous system that allow us to hear the way we do. It's not the outer hair cells that amplify sound but the nerve fibers (mainly efferent) that amplify frequencies into our brain so that we can correctly process what has been picked up by the hair cell(s) the nerve is associated with.

It really just does not make sense with the way hair cells are being researched. I'm not against it, but I really understood how exaggerated it is when I realized just how important our hearing "processing ability" is. I think it's actually dangerous for those who have ringing to partake in regrowth of new hair cells in the cochlea because there really is no way to tell if you have actual hair cell loss and as you know, these hair cells have to be perfectly aligned/working properly and adding more than needed could cause havoc instead of being for the better.

 

So, what has really changed? It seems everyone is basically pursuing gene therapy, stim cells, and notch therapy. Everyone in the research world seems to be on the same page as to what needs to be done.

I'm confused what the hold up is at this point? One company is already doing human trials with gene therapy. Other companies and research had success with animal models.

Why is nothing really happening more with human trials?

 

well becouse all has failed, we will see what happen in 10 years

 

because this is all very, very new technology and you really don't want to mess with genetic tech in humans until you're very sure how it works and what it's going to do.

I'll be excited about hearing regeneration and novel tinnitus treatments once they have been proven to work in a large number of humans. Until then, I am only excited about them from the perspective of the interesting things that the work is teaching us about ourselves.