A new gene therapy is giving people born deaf the chance to hear, often within just weeks. In a small but groundbreaking study, researchers delivered a working copy of a key hearing gene directly into the inner ear using a single injection. All ten patients, ranging from young children to adults, experienced improved hearing, with some showing rapid gains in just one month.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] waddle_dee@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Agreed. The AAV delivery isn't even new. It's just treating the signal from inner hair cells IHC to the brain, improving it. Most deafness comes from either damage/mutations to the IHC or Cochlea. In the case of a very close family member, they were born without IHC. Most or all, were gone. This is due to genetics, or viruses, commonly. In the case of my family member, it was the latter.

Those IHC are also what cause age related hearing loss and acoustic hearing loss. They get damaged over time, and with loud noises. Effectively, curing that is the cure for deafness. The problem with that is, the ability for regeneration diminishes with age. We can't figure out a way to grow them, consistently, safely, and lasting. Because stem cell therapy is wild.