Instead of a hearing aid

Regenerative therapy restores hearing

Georgy Golovanov, Hi-tech+

Frequency Therapeutics is going to return hearing loss to the hearing impaired without devices and implants. The regenerative therapy developed by the specialists of this biotech company is based on programming the progenitor cells in the inner ear to create tiny sensory hair cells with which we perceive sounds.

Progenitor cells, which are located in the inner ear, differentiate into hair cells during the prenatal period of development, and then hibernate and never manifest themselves again. At birth, a person has about 15,000 hair cells in each cochlea of the ear, which gradually die off from old age, from too loud sounds or certain types of drugs, but do not regenerate.

A few years ago, a group of researchers from MIT made an important breakthrough: they were able to use certain molecules to turn progenitor cells into thousands of hair cells in the laboratory, says MIT News. No one has ever been able to create hair cells in such a volume before. This method turned out to be preferable to gene therapy, when the genes taken from the patient are programmed in the laboratory, and then re-introduced to the right place.

Hair cells (highlighted in pink) in the cochlea of the ear of a preclinical model of sensorineural hearing loss. On the left – an animal from the control group, on the right – after therapy.

The results of the first clinical trials showed a statistically significant improvement in speech perception in some participants after a single injection. In some cases, the positive reaction persisted for up to two years. In total, the company conducted three series of trials involving more than 200 patients.

"Some of these people couldn't hear for 30 years, and for the first time they were able to go to a crowded restaurant and hear what their children were saying," said Robert Langer, one of the founders of the company. "It's very important for them."

The researchers do not exclude that in 10-15 years their therapy will become as everyday and accessible as laser vision correction.

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