NEW YORK, April 28 — The University of Kansas will start clinical trial of a gene therapy technique that can hopefully restore hearing in people with hearing impairment, according to an article published in New Scientist.
People lose their hearing through damage or disease. Commonly used to improve damaged hearing, hearing aids merely amplify sounds. Another treatment is a cochlea transplant, but implants do not help the hearing-impaired pick up all natural frequencies, making it difficult for them to grasp the nuances in speech and music.
The hearing process is still not fully understood. The eardrum vibrates after sound waves enter the ear.The sound waves make their way to the cochlea and the organ of Corti. The outer hair cells amplify the sounds, while the inner hair cells send the information to the hearing nerve.
One of the most common causes of hearing loss is damaged hair cells. In previous experiments, scientists discovered that injecting a virus that contains a special gene named Atoh1 into the cochlea stimulated the regeneration of hair cells in mice.
Currently, researchers are recruiting 45 volunteers to participate in the next stage of the trial.
People born deaf are unlikely to benefit from this new technology because they don’t have structures that support hair cells. — Reuters
