Deaf Teenager and 24-Year-Old Gain Ability to Hear After Experimental Gene Therapy

In recent years, the generality has appeared as a promising treatment for the genetic forms of congenital deafness and hearing loss in childbirth. A new study shows that gene therapy can be heard in teenagers and adults.

Journey broadcast on Wednesday Nature medicineOTOF GENE hired patients with deafness or severe hearing disorder caused by mutations. This gene produces a protein named autoferlin playing a critical role during the transmission of ear signals to the brain. Coarse 200,000 The people around the world are deaf for a mutation in Otof Gene. During the last few years, genes were successfully held improved hearing In children with autof-related carnies, but several studies, in this situation, in this situation, the effectiveness of adolescents and adults.

The authors of this new study tried to fill this gap. At the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, researchers had a genetic form that caused 10 patients between 1 and 24 ages 1 and 24 and a genetic shape of all in a genetic shape or otof. Treatment is surrounded by an injection through a membrane through a membrane with a fluid, filled with a fluid in the interior ear. This injection, the engineer presented the functional version of the Otof genes via a virus.

After a month of treatment, the majority of patients won some hearing. After six months, the feeling of 106 decibels (very high) five22 (very high) felt between 52 (very high), showed significantly improving the average volume of average volume. Moreover, patients did not report any negative side effects after treatment in the first 12 months.

“It is very excited,” said a consultant and associate professor in the Clinical Sciences of Clinical Sciences, Intervention and Technology. Duan and his colleagues, especially the most effective treatment of the age of 5 and 8 years of age, which are the most influential gene therapy and acquire a coclear implant in the other A 7-year-old girl was almost all. Only four months later, two months later, he was able to make daily conversations with his mother. When a storm was caught in a storm, he said that the girl could hear the sound of rain for the first time, Gizmodo.

Previous gene therapy studies showed similar promising results in young patients with Otof-related carchism, Lawrence Lustig, Columbia University in Irving Medical Center, a neurtrologist Gizmodoya. However, the age of 14 and 24 years older than the age of 12, 14 and 24 years old, surprised him.

“I think that most of us come into this are that you are older, the hearing results will be worse,” he said. Some studies show that children can win some hearing improvements through Otof Gene Therapy, as there are 12 years old, but I do not think nobody has seen anything [in patients] As was old after 24 years, he added. However, this small business includes two participants in this age interval, because future research will confirm the effectiveness of the genophers and adults in adults.

Duan and his colleagues plan to wish these patients at least five to five years to 10 years, to determine whether the treatment is effective for a long time. There is a long way to go until OtoF Gene Therapy still exists, these early results add an argument to an evidence that points to its effectiveness. The prayer hopes that this study will also open a guide to gene therapy that treated more common forms of genetic hearing loss.

“Otof is just the beginning,” he said statement. “We and other researchers and other researchers are expanding to more common genes that cause more than GJB2 and TMC1.